Review of a judgment requires an error apparent on the face of the record, not merely an error revealed through extensive reasoning.

JUDGMENT

S.G. Chattopadhyay, J. - The Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd. (ONGC for short) [appellant in Arbitration Appeal No.3 of 2019] has filed this petition in terms of Order 47, Rule 1, CPC seeking review of the judgment and order dated 22.06.2022 passed by this Court in Arbitration Appeal No.3 of 2019.

2. Heard Mr. D.K. Biswas, learned senior advocate appearing along with Mr. G.K. Nama, learned advocate for the petitioner(s). Also heard Mr. Raju Datta learned advocate appearing along with Mr. Kundan Pandey, advocate for the respondent(s).

3. The perspective facts which are relevant for appreciation of the challenge, briefly stated, are as under:

The review petitioner (appellant in Arbitration Appeal No.3 of 2019) filed an application under Section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (Arbitration Act for short) before the learned District Judge, West Tripura, Agartala for setting aside the arbitral award dated 29.03.2010 passed by the sole Arbitrator. The said application came to be registered as Civil Misc. (Arbitration) 18 of 2018 before the learned District Judge, West Tripura at Agartala. The following facts were brought to the notice of the learned District Judge by filing the said application under Section 34 of the Arbitration Act:

(i) Different types of vehicles including car, taxi, hard top ambulance, non-AC TATA Indigo LX etc were hired by the review-petitioner from respondent Sri Swapan Kumar Paul under 04 different contracts which were executed between the review-petitioner and said Sri Swapan Kumar Paul on different dates. Contract No.9010014028 was executed on 16.03.2011, contract No. 9010014069 was executed on 22.03.2011, contract No.9010016874 was executed on 07.12.2012 and contract No.9010018962 was executed on 18.12.2013. Other than the hard top ambulance and the emergency vehicles, all other vehicles were hired by the review-petitioner for carrying out duty for 12 hours per day and the hard top ambulance and all other emergency vehicles were hired for performing duty for 24 hours per day.

(ii) In terms of the contracts executed between the parties, the respondent placed his vehicles at the disposal of the review-petitioner within the stipulated time. Log books were maintained for each of the vehicles to record the kms/distance run by the vehicle. The respondent had asserted in his claim statement before the arbitrator that the review-petitioner often used to keep many of the hired vehicles off the road without assigning any duty to those vehicles. This apart, the review-petitioner in breach of the contract, used to keep the vehicles out of duty without any advance intimation to the respondent which caused huge loss to the respondent. When the respondent raised bills claiming the hiring charges, the review-petitioner arbitrarily reduced the bill amount on the ground that excess kms was recorded in the log books. The review-petitioner arbitrarily reduced the kms in the log book without consulting the claimant and refused to sanction the bill amount. As a result, dispute cropped up between the parties.

4. In terms of the Arbitration clause contained in the contract, the disputes were referred to the sole Arbitrator for adjudication.

5. The review-petitioner claimed that the claims of the respondent having been raised beyond the permissible period of 01 year, such claims would be hit by clause 7.6 of the contract. The review-petitioner further claimed that no wrongful deductions from the bills raised by the claimants were made. Deductions which were made from those bills were in accordance with the contract executed between them.

6. The Arbitrator framed separate issues for determination of the disputes and passed the following award(s):

'AWARD(S)

In view of the foregoing discussions, the instant five arbitral proceedings succeed and the claims of the Claimants in all the five matters are allowed in full. The Respondent-ONGC shall pay the Claimants:

(i) The sum of Rs.6,87,563.09 in Matter No.1, arisi