The main legal point established in the judgment is the maintainability of an application under Section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, before the learned Additional District Judge.

Vinod K.Sharma, J.

1. Sarvshri Harish Kumar Gupta and Satish Kumar Gupta, two partners of the firm-M/s. Liberty Enterprises, had filed Civil Suit No. 76 of 2003 in the court of learned Civil Judge (Senior Division), Karnal, for declaration and permanent injunction, wherein some of the defendants/partners filed an application under Section 8 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) for referring the parties to arbitration as per arbitration clause No. 15 contained in the partnership deed dated January 29, 2002 which reads as under:

That in case of any dispute between the parties with regard to the interpretations of this deed or any other matter relating to the affairs of the firm, the same shall be referred to an arbitrator mutually agreed upon between the parties in accordance with the provisions of the Indian Arbitration Act.

2. The application was allowed by the learned Civil Judge vide order dated 6th of October, 2003 and accordingly the matter was directed to be referred to the arbitrator to decide the dispute between the parties to the following effect:

As a sequel to the above discussions, the matter is liable to be referred to the arbitrator on the following terms and conditions: (i) The partners of the firm-M/s. Liberty Enterprises shall appoint an arbitrator by mutual consent within a period of two months. In case the parties have failed to appoint any arbitrator by mutual consent, then anyone may approach the court for the appointment of arbitrator under Section 11 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996.

(ii) The arbitrator, thereafter, shall complete the arbitral proceedings within a period of four months.

(iii) Till the arbitration proceedings are completed the partners of M/s. Liberty Enterprises shall not act upon the agreement of franchise dated 31.03.2003 and would preserve the property, reputation and goodwill of M/s. Liberty Enterprises.

(iv) The pleadings and the orders passed during the proceedings of the present case shall have no bearings on the arbitral proceedings.

3. The said order dated 6th of October, 2003 was challenged by both the parties by way of two civil revisions and Civil Revision No. 4974 of 2003 was admitted on 10th of September, 2004 and the following order was passed:

The present case is identical to Civil Revision No. 5609 of 2003. It is substantially between the same parties. The aforementioned revision stands admitted on 19.08.2004 and the operation of the terms and conditions mentioned in para No. 11 of that case were ordered to be stayed.

As the present case is absolutely the same, therefore, this petition is admitted. The terms and conditions as mentioned in para No. 19(ii) of the order passed by the learned trial court shall remain stayed. The revision petition shall be posted for final hearing on 25.01.2005.

Both the parties are agreed that an arbitrator be appointed. Accordingly, as per the consensus of the court as well as counsel for the parties, Hon ble Mr. Justice A.L. Bahri is appointed as arbitrator, who will decide the matter.

4. The reading of this order would show that this Court has retained control over the arbitral proceedings as the stay order granted by this Court is an order under Section 9 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996.

5. The respondents in this revision petition filed a claim petition before the learned arbitrator and impleaded the petitioner herein as respondent No. 11 in the said claim petition.

6. The present petitioner-M/s. Liberty Shoes Limited moved an application for deletion of its name from the array of the parties on the ground that it was not a party to the arbitration agreement contained in partnership deed dated 29.01.2002. The learned arbitrator was pleased to pass the following order on April 2, 2006:

By this order, application filed by M/s. Liberty Shoes Limited for deleting its name from the array of parties in the present arbitration proceedings is being disposed of.

The