The seat of arbitration, once agreed upon, confers exclusive jurisdiction to the designated court, preventing the invocation of other jurisdictions.

JUDGMENT :

CHAKRADHARI SHARAN SINGH, C.J.

This matter is taken up through Hybrid mode.

2. The petitioner is a private limited company having its registered office at Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh. This application has been filed under Section 11 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (in short ‘the Act’), through the Director, Abhinav Madan, resident of Gurgaon, seeking appointment of an Arbitrator for adjudication of the disputes and the differences that have arisen between the petitioner and the opposite party.

3. The petitioner claims to be a social entrepreneurial outreach set up by Centurion University of Technology & Management, in partnership with National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), which is a not-for-profit public limited company, set up by the Ministry of Finance in Public Private Partnership (PPP) model. The NSDC has its registered office at Shaheed Jeet Singh Marg, New Delhi.

4. The petitioner and the opposite party had entered into a loan agreement for a sum of Rs.52.8 Crore on 28.11.2012 for setting up of skill training centers in various parts of Odisha, Eastern UP, Jharkhand and Assam. A copy of the said loan agreement has been brought on record by way of Annexure-1 to this application.

5. Article X of the said loan agreement contains the provisions concerning “governing law, dispute resolution and jurisdiction”, Clause-10.2(ii) of which reads as under:

“(ii) The place of arbitration shall be New Delhi. The arbitration proceedings shall be conducted in the English language.”

6. Upon notice, the opposite party has entered appearance and raised objection questioning the maintainability of the present petition before this Court, on the ground of lack of territorial jurisdiction. It is also the case of the opposite party that this petition seeking appointment of an Arbitrator under Section 11 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 is pre-mature in view of the terms of the agreement.

7. I have heard Mr. Tanmay Mishra, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner and Mr. R.C. Panigrahi, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the opposite party.

8. In view of the submissions which have been advanced on behalf of the parties, particularly, on the question of maintainability of the present petition on the grounds as noted above, it is deemed expedient to briefly take note of certain facts that gave rise to the present petition and relevant terms of the agreement, before dealing with the preliminary objection of maintainability taken on behalf of the opposite party.

9. It is the petitioner’s case that in terms of the loan agreement, which required pre-disbursement conditions, including infusion of proportionate capital from shareholders, the first disbursement after necessary compliances, for a sum of Rs.10,80,00,000/- had taken place on 12.02.2014 and the second disbursement for a sum of Rs.11,12,19,522/- on 06.12.2016. It is further the case of the petitioner that in March, 2017 it had approached the NSDC seeking their permission to use the sanctioned loan to set up centers for Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Kendras (PMKKs), a specific scheme announced by the NSDC for setting up aspirational centers in each district of India. A significant portion of the loan was therefore allocated for setting up of PMKKs in remote parts of Odisha. It is noted at this juncture itself that the use of the sanctioned loan for setting up of PMKKs in some parts of Odisha is the sole cause of action which according to the petitioner entitles it to maintain this petition for appointment of Arbitrator bef