Under Section 11(6) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, the High Court has jurisdiction to appoint a sole arbitrator when the parties fail to reach a consensus on the appointment within the contractually stipulated period, provided a valid arbitration agreement exists.

1. This is an application under Section 11(6) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (for short, “the Act of 1996”) for appointment of an arbitrator.

2. The applicant has prayed for the following relief:-

a. Appoint a Sole Arbitrator, to adjudicate the dispute between the parties arising out of the MSA dated 24.12.2021 pertaining to the IPeG Project between the applicant and the Non-Applicant/Respondent; And/or

b. Grant such other order(s) as this Hon'ble Court may deem fit in the interest of justice.

3. The fact, in brief, as projected by the applicant is that the ESDS Software Solution Limited (hereinafter referred to as “ESDS” or “Applicant”), is a public company duly incorporated under the Companies Act, having CIN U72200MH2005PLC155433 and registered office at Nashik, Maharashtra. The applicant is a leading and diversified entity engaged in information and communications technology solutions, including large-scale e-Governance platforms, secure cloud hosting, programme management, operations and maintenance, and allied digital infrastructure services. The applicant is represented through its authorised signatory and Power of Attorney Holder. The respondent, Chhattisgarh Infotech Promotion Society (CHiPS), is a registered society promoted by the Government of Chhattisgarh and functions as the State’s nodal agency for implementation of IT initiatives and e-Governance projects, including those under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP). In association with the World Bank, the respondent issued request for proposal (RFP) No. 81971/CEO/CHIPS/IPEG/2021 dated 19.08.2021 for implementation of the Integrated Proactive e-Governance System (IPeG Project), aimed at providing a unified digital platform for delivery of government services to citizens. Pursuant to the RFP, the applicant participated in the bidding process and was selected as the Master System Integrator (MSI). Accordingly, a Letter of Intent dated 30.10.2021 was issued in its favour, followed by execution of a Master Service Agreement (MSA) dated 24.12.2021 between the applicant and the respondent, governing the rights and obligations of the parties. The scope of the Project included design, development, integration, hosting, security certification, and operation of a unified citizen-centric platform, along with integration of identity systems, payment gateways, dashboards, grievance redressal mechanisms, and programme management functions. That upon commencement of the Project, the applicant mobilized its resources and undertook development of the platform, including core and extended modules. However, the progress of the Project was substantially dependent on fulfillment of several owner-side prerequisites, including provisioning of UIDAI authentication services (AUA/KUA), Aadhaar Data Vault (ADV), departmental datasets, and payment gateway approvals. That despite repeated communications from the applicant since early 2022, the respondent failed to ensure timely provisioning of these critical dependencies. The absence of these prerequisites materially impeded the progress of the Project and delayed transition to User Acceptance Testing (UAT), certification and Go-Live stages. The Project envisaged milestone-based progression culminating in UAT, followed by security certification through STQC and eventual Go-Live. The applicant submitted multiple milestone deliverables and demonstrated functional modules on various occasions; howev