JUDGEMENT

DINESH KUMAR SHARMA, J. (Oral)

1. The present petition has been filed under Section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, inter-alia seeking setting aside of the Arbitral Award dated 23.08.2023 (hereinafter referred to as "the impugned Award") passed by the Ld. Arbitral Tribunal Comprising of Justice Dipak Misra, Justice K.K. Lahoti and Justice Parthasakha Datta in the Arbitration case titled as "M/s Larsen and Toubro Ltd Vs. NTPC Limited". The summary of the award as encapsulated by the learned Arbitral Tribunal is inter-alia as under:

“311. Accordingly, for the reasons set out hereinabove, the Tribunal, under the provisions of the Arbitration Act, allows the claim in favour of the Claimant and against the Respondent as per the following terms and quantification:

312. Resultantly, in view of the foregoing analysis and findings, the Tribunal hereby passes an award, under the provisions of the Arbitration Act, for a total of Rs.9.02,84,509/- along with interest, as directed hereinbefore, with costs of Rs.70,00,000/- in favour of the Claimant and against the Respondent. The said amount is hereby recoverable in law by the Claimant from the Respondent by virtue of this Award.

313. The Claim of the Claimant is allowed to the extent indicated above.”

2. Briefly, stated the facts are that, the Petitioner had initiated the project for setting up of 2 x 800 MW Darlipali Supe Thermal Power Project, Stage I in the Sundargarh District of Odisha and for the said purpose, the Petitioner floated a tender by Invitation for Bid dated 24.02.2014 for Main Plant and Offsite Civil Works Package for the Project. The Respondent submitted its complete bid and was the lowest bidder.

The Petitioner issued a letter of Award dated 12.08.2014 in favour of the Respondent. The parties subsequently entered a contract on 14 November 2014 numbered as CS-9549-315A(R)- 9-CS-COA-6196 for the work of Main Plant & Offsite Civil Works Package for Darlipalli Super Thermal Power Plant, Stage -1 (2 X 800MW). Cause of action between the parties arose when The Ministry of Labour and Employment, Government of India issued notification under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, increasing the daily rates of minimum wages payable to workmen with effect from 19 January 2017 which resulted in the claim for additional cost on account of the above Notification. In view of the arbitration clause, the matter was referred to learned Arbitral Tribunal and the tribunal after hearing passed the impugned award.

3. The award has been challenged by the petitioner under Section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act primarily on the following grounds:

i.

Ld. Tribunal ignored the absence of term “Notification” in GCC clause 10.4.3 which indicated the intention of parties for exclusion of notification from the ambit of change in law. Tribunal also didn‟t consider “South East Asia Marine Engineering and Construction Ltd. vs. Oil India Ltd.” judgement where Hon‟ble Supreme Court held that document forming a written contract has to be read as a whole and so far as possible as mutually explanatory.

ii.

Tribunal also did not take into consideration Section 3(1)(b) of the Act which provided for the review of the rate of minimum wages fixed by the govt. at intervals as deemed fit. The award has further been challenged on the ground that the tribunal mistook the Price Adjustment clause in Clause 6 of SCC which compensated the Respondent for the variation in the rate of labour costs and considered the rate increase in the rate of minimum wages. The petitioner submitted that Clause 6 misses out any reference to the minimum wages or the components of minimum wages. It has been submitted that Clause 6 only compensates for labour and material.

iii.

The petitioner submitted that the expenditures incurred by the Respondent and the expenditure compensated under the Price Adjustment Clause were excluded from the ambit of Clause 10.4.3. and only the costs covered under the Pr