* IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI % Reserved on: 4^th January, 2024 Pronounced on: 28th June, 2024 + O.M.P. (COMM) 118/2019 & I.A. 4293/2019 UNION OF INDIA ..... Petitioner Through: Mr. Ripu Daman Bhardwaj, CGSC, Mr. Kushagra Kumar, Ms. Manasawini & Mr. Abhinav Bhardwaj, Advocates.

versus M/S ANS CONSTRUCTION LTD ..... Respondent Through: Mr. Sushil Aggarwal, Advocate.

CORAM:

HON'BLE MS. JUSTICE NEENA BANSAL KRISHNA

J U D G M E N T

NEENA BANSAL KRISHNA, J.

1. The present Petition under Section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (hereinafter referred to as the “Act, 1996”) has been filed on behalf of the petitioner for setting aside the impugned Award dated

17.08.2018 as corrected/clarified on 20.08.2018 and on 18.09.2018.

2. The petitioner/CPWD which is a Government Department has sought to challenge the impugned Award dated 17.08.2018 as corrected/clarified on 20.08.2018 and on 18.09.2018 on the ground that it has been passed by ignoring the contractual provisions and applying the extraneous Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed O.M.P. (COMM) 118/2019 Page 1 of 30 provisions/conditions that were not part of the Agreement between the parties.

3. The facts in brief are that the respondent/Claimant, a Private Limited Company, was awarded Tender work for construction of various buildings at

20th Bn. Hqs. Balrampur.

4. An Agreement bearing No. 47/EE/LCD-II/2011-12 (hereinafter referred to as the “Agreement”) was entered into between the parties for the work construction of Mahila Barrack, including internal electrical installation to be constructed for Mahila Jawans of SSB Bn. Hqrs., Balrampur deployed for the national security along Indo-Nepal Border. As per the terms of the Agreement, the date of start and date of completion of work was stipulated as 18.03.2011 and 17.12.2011 respectively, but it got completed on 07.10.2013, i.e. after about two years of stipulated date.

5. The disputes arose inter se the parties after completion of work and a list of 12 Claims was submitted by the /Claimant respondent to EE/LCD-II vide Letter dated 04.12.2015. All the Claims were, after examination, held to be not admissible and they were rejected by the Executive Engineer vide Letter dated 29.01.2016. The respondent filed an Appeal under Clause 25(i) of the Agreement before SE/LCC vide Letter dated 06.01.2016. The SE also after examining the same, came to the same conclusion that the Claims were not permissible and rejected them all by his Letter dated 02.02.2016.

6. Aggrieved by such rejection, the respondent filed an Appeal under Section 25(i) of the Agreement before CE(NZ-II) along with the list of 12 Claims on 17.02.2016. However, this Appeal also met the same fate of rejection of all the Claims by CE(NZ-II) on 23.02.2016.

Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed O.M.P. (COMM) 118/2019 Page 2 of 30

7. The respondent then gave a Notice of Invocation of Arbitration on 29.02.2016. The Arbitrator was appointed who eventually passed the impugned Award dated 17.08.2018 as corrected/clarified on 20.08.2018 and on 18.09.2018.

8. The Claims were decided as under:

9. The petitioner aggrieved by the Claims mentioned as above being granted in favour of the respondent/ Claimant, has filed the present Petition under Section 34 of the Act, 1996.

10. The petitioner has submitted that there was a total delay of 660 days in completion of the work. The Ld. Arbitrator attributed the delay of 106 days to the respondent and has accordingly imposed