Excessive and unexplained delay in arbitral proceedings vitiates the award, impacting fairness and leading to its annulment under public policy and patent illegality.

ORDER :

N.ANAND VENKATESH, J.

The claimant before the Arbitral Tribunal is the petitioner before this Court and he has assailed the award dated 08.2.2021 passed by the Arbitral Tribunal.

2. Heard both.

3. The case of the petitioner is as follows:

(i) The respondent called for tenders involving the work for standardisation of cutting including pitching and construction of side drain and the work was awarded on 29.12.2006 by issuing a letter of acceptance.

(ii) Disputes arose between the parties and an Arbitral Tribunal was constituted on 21.12.2012. At that point of time, even though the petitioner had raised four claims, the respondent referred only one claim in the terms of reference and issued a letter dated 04.2.2013 to the effect that the other three claims were excepted matters and could not be included in the arbitration proceedings. In the meantime, the petitioner wrote a letter dated 16.1.2013 to the General Manager of the respondent to refer all the claims made by the petitioner. The communication made by the petitioner to the Arbitral Tribunal also did not evoke any response.

(iii) Under such circumstances, the petitioner filed O.P.No.832 of 2014 before this Court seeking to appoint an arbitral tribunal to decide all the claims of the petitioner and in that, an order was passed on 28.4.2015 with a direction to refer all the claims to the same Arbitral Tribunal, which has already been constituted and it was further made clear that the Arbitral Tribunal would deal with the issue of maintainability of those claims, which were brought within the excepted matters by the respondent.

(iv) Pursuant to that, the respondent issued an addendum dated 26.11.2015 following the said order passed by this Court and referring all the claims of the petitioner to the Arbitral Tribunal for adjudication.

(v) After the said addendum was issued, there was a change in the panel of Arbitrators and on 15.3.2016, the petitioner made a communication to the Arbitral Tribunal to commence the proceedings and also to inspect the work site to ascertain the real position while deciding the disputes between the parties.

(vi) Even thereafter, there was absolutely no response from the Arbitral Tribunal and only on 21.3.2018, a communication was received from the respondent intimating that there was a change in the constitution of of the Arbitral Tribunal and a new co-arbitrator has been appointed. The petitioner had also taken a stand that from 26.11.2015 to 25.2.2020, almost for a period of more than four years, no proceedings were held before the Arbitral Tribunal. Thus, the dispute, which started in the year 2012, did not see any progress till the year 2020. Ultimately, on 25.2.2020, the hearing commenced before the Arbitral Tribunal. The next hearing was conducted on 22.12.2020 and this was the only physical hearing that took place.

(vii) In the meantime, before the Arbitral Tribunal, the petitioner filed the claim statement on 20.2.2020. Later, the respondent filed a counter containing counter claims also. Two hearing were conducted through online mode on 05.1.2021 and 21.1.2021. Thereafter, the petitioner filed O.P.No.174 of 2021 before this Court for termination of the mandate of the Arbitral Tribunal under Section 14 of the Act, on 10.2.2021. When O.P.No.174 of 2021 came up for hearing on 18.3.2021, it was informed to this Court that the Arbitral Tribunal already passed an award on 08.2.2021 itself and therefore, O.P.No.174 of 2021 was closed as infructuous.

(viii) The petitioner thereafter issued two legal notices dated 17.6.2021 and 15.7.2021 to the Arbitrators, who formed part of the Arbit