IMPORTANT POINT
The court upheld arbitration awards, finding no violation of natural justice, as BSNL's failure to participate justified the ex parte award.

JUDGMENT :

Vikas Budhwar, J.

1. Challenge in these appeals under Section 37 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (in short ‘A & C Act 1996’) are the orders of the Commercial Court rejecting the objections preferred by the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (in short ‘BSNL’) under Section 34 of the A & C Act, 1996 upholding the awards passed in favour of the Chaurasiya Enterprises (in short ‘claimant’).

2. Since common question of facts and law are involved in all the captioned appeals, thus, they are being decided by a common order.

Facts

3. Briefly stated facts, sans unnecessary details are that BSNL in the year 2015 in order to lay down underground Optical Fibre Cable in District Bhadoi floated tenders, seeking bids from the prospective bidders. The claimant is stated to have been issued work orders, however, owing to certain disputes/differences which arose between the parties in respect of different contracts, notices came to be issued by the claimants to the BSNL on 20.03.2019 to clear the outstanding dues within a period of 30 days and, in case, the said request is not acceded, then to appoint an arbitrator in term of Section 12(5) of the 7th Schedule of the A & C Act, 1996. A reminder was also sent by the claimant to the BSNL on 08.05.2019 and since nothing happened, the claimant approached this Court while filing an arbitration application purported to be under Section 11(4) of the A & C Act, 1996 for appointment of an arbitrator.

4. Sri Brahmdeo Mishra, a retired District Judge was appointed as the sole arbitrator. The arbitrator entered into the reference on 08.11.2019 and thereafter proceeded to pass awards in favour of the claimant.

5. Questioning the awards, objections under Section 34 of the A & C Act, 1996 came to be filed by the BSNL which was rejected by the Commercial Court, Varanasi.

6. Assailing the said orders, the present arbitration appeals have been preferred.

7. For the sake of clarity, the descriptions and the details of the proceedings which are subject matter of the present appeal are being recapitulated in the form of a tabular chart:-

Arguments of counsel for BSNL (Appellants)

8. Sri B.K. Singh Raghuvanshi, learned counsel for the BSNL has sought to argue that the orders of the Commercial Court rejecting the objections under Section 34 of the A & C Act, 1996 upholding the awards cannot be sustained for a single moment inasmuch as the Commercial Court, Varanasi has misconstrued the entire controversy and has adopted an incorrect approach. Elaborating the said submission, it is submitted that though pursuant to the orders of this Court in the proceedings under Section 11(4) of the A & C Act, 1996, the sole arbitrator came to be appointed, however, the entire proceedings undertaken by the arbitrator are in the teeth of the procedure as envisaged under the A & C Act, 1996. Submission is that the present cases are classic example of violation of principles of natural justice and also equal treatment has not been meted to the BSNL as per Section 18 of the A & C Act, 1996 particularly when, though the claimant on 16.11.2019 submitted statement of claim