JUDGMENT :

1. Heard Sri Manish Jauhari, learned Counsel for the petitioner and Sri J.N. Mathur, learned Senior Counsel assisted by Sri Amit Kumar Singh and Sri Utkarsh Srivastava, learned Counsel for the sole respondent.

2. The short question involved in the present petition pertains to the territorial jurisdiction of the court for execution of an award.

3. The facts in brief are that the petitioner and the respondent entered into an agreement on 29.12.2016 for supply of Conductor through Purchased Order No.3366 and thereafter, in pursuance to the said order, an agreement dated 02.07.2018 was also entered into. In terms of the said agreement, certain payments are to be made on the basis of supply made by the respondent to the petitioner. The dispute occurred with regard to the payment of the pending bill raised by the respondent. An application was moved by the respondent on 18.02.2020 claiming an amount of Rs.15,27,30,879/- along with interest thereupon quantified at Rs.4,88,82,916/- through an application before the U.P. State Micro and Small Enterprises Facilitation Council, Kanpur (in short ‘the Council’). The petitioner herein put his appearance before the Council situate at Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh and contested the claim. The Council proceeded to pass an award/order vide order dated 27.01.2022 against the petitioner directing to deposit total amount of Rs.9,97,58,764/- in favour of the respondent, which was directed to be paid as per the provisions of the “Act 27/2006” on the delayed payment. The said award is on record as Annexure-5 to the writ petition.

4. It appears that challenging the said award, the petitioner filed an application under Section 19 of The Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Act, 2006 (in short ‘the MSMED Act’) read with Section 34 of The Arbitration and Conciliation Act, which was registered as Misc. Case No.24 of 2023. The said application was rejected by the learned Judge, Commercial Court, Kanpur vide order dated 18.02.2022 mainly on the ground that pre-deposit of Rs.75%, which was required under Section 19 of the MSMED Act, was not paid. Thereafter, the petitioner also filed an application for recall of the order dated 18.08.2022 and ultimately, the same was rejected vide order dated 31.01.2023. The said order dated 31.01.2023 was challenged by filing a petition under Article 227 of the Constitution of India before this Court at Allahabad being Matters Under Article 227 No.3552 of 2023, in which no interim order was passed in favour of the petitioner. In the meanwhile, the respondent filed an application for execution of the award dated 27.01.2022 before the Commercial Court, Lucknow, which was registered as Execution Case No.321 of 2022. The petitioner put in appearance and filed its objection. The said objections were rejected by the Commercial Court, vide order dated 10.03.2023, which has been challenged by the petitioner by filing the instant petition.

5. The contention of the Counsel for the petitioner is that once the award was delivered at Kanpur, in view of the bar created by virtue of Section 42 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, it is only the Court at Kanpur, which could have entertained the execution application and, the Court at Lucknow has no territorial jurisdiction. The Counsel for the petitioner places reliance on the judgment of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of State of West Bengal and others vs. Associated Contractors; (2015) 1 SCC 32, wherein, the Hon’ble Supreme Court has held as under :

“11. It will be noticed that Section 42 is in almost the same terms as its predecessor section except that the words “in any reference” are substituted with the wider expression “with respect to an arbitration agreement”. It will also be noticed that the expression “has been made in a court competent to entertain it”, is no longer there in Section 42. These two changes are of some significance as will be pointed out later. Section 42 starts with a non obstante clause which