Neutral Citation No. - 2024:AHC:167768-DB AFR Reserved on 25.09.2024 Chief Justice's Court Case :- APPEAL UNDER SECTION 37 OF ARBITRATION AND CONCILIATION ACT 1996 No. - 305 of 2024 (Leading)

Appellant :- Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited and another Respondent :- Chaurasiya Enterprises and 2 others With Case :- APPEAL UNDER SECTION 37 OF ARBITRATION AND CONCILIATION ACT 1996 No. - 306 of 2024 (Connected C1)

Appellant :- Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited Bsnl Through Its Chairman And Managing Director and Another Respondent :- Chaurasiya Enterprises Through Its Proprietor Sri Amar Bahadur Chaurasiya and 2 others With Case :- APPEAL UNDER SECTION 37 OF ARBITRATION AND CONCILIATION ACT 1996 No. - 307 of 2024 (Connected C2)

Appellant :- Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited And Another Respondent :- Chaurasiya Enterprises and 2 others With Case :- APPEAL UNDER SECTION 37 OF ARBITRATION AND CONCILIATION ACT 1996 No. - 308 of 2024 (Connected C3)

Appellant :- Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited Bsnl And Another Respondent :- Chaurasiya Enterprises Village Shahjipur Post Tharwai District Allahabad and 2 others With Case :- APPEAL UNDER SECTION 37 OF ARBITRATION AND CONCILIATION ACT 1996 No. - 310 of 2024 (Connected C4)

Appellant :- Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited Bsnl And Another Respondent :- Chaurasiya Enterprises Village Shahjipur Post Tharwai District Allahabad and 2 others Appearance:- B.K.Singh Raghuvanshi, Counsel for BSNL(Appellant), Daya Shankar and Mahendra Kumar Mishra, Counsel for Respondents(Claimants)

Hon'ble Arun Bhansali,Chief Justice Hon'ble Vikas Budhwar,J.

(Per: Hon’ble 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 7^th 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 misconstrue