$~7 * IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI Date of decision: 27.01.2026 + ARB.P. 2049/2025 G.S. EXPRESS PVT. LTD. .....Petitioner Through: Mr. Ankur Khandelwal and Mr.

Chirag Sharma, Advocates.

versus LAND PORT AUTHORITY OF INDIA .....Respondent Through: Mr. Siddharth, Mr. Harshit Manwani, Ms. Himanshi Girdhar and Mr. Deepanshu Grover, Advocates.

CORAM:

HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE HARISH VAIDYANATHAN SHANKAR % J U D G E M E N T (Oral)

1. The present Petition, under Section 11(6) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 [“Act”], has been filed seeking the appointment of an Arbitrator for the adjudication of disputes inter se the parties arising out of the General Conditions of Contract dated

15.04.2024 [“ GCC”].

2. Clause 25.2 of the General Conditions of Contract, 2022, which contains the arbitration clause, reads as follows:

“25.2 Arbitration: If the aforesaid conciliation proceedings fail or the Conciliator fails to give proposal for settlement within the aforesaid period, either party may promptly give notice in the proforma prescribed in Appendix XVIII, under intimation to the other party, to the Chiel Engineer or the Superintending Engineer concerned with the work (as applicable), hereinafter referred to as the Arbitrator Appointing Authority as Indicated in Schedule F, for appointment of Arbitrator.

However, a party may seek appointment of Arbitrator without taking recourse to the process of conciliation mentioned in sub- clause 25.1 above. In the event of either party giving a notice to the Arbitrator Appointing Authority for appointment of Arbitrator, the said Authority shall appoint Arbitrator as per the procedure given below and refer such disputes to arbitration.

(a) Number of Arbitrators: If the contract amount is loss than Rs. 100 crore, the disputes may be referred for adjudication by a sole Arbitrator. If the contract amount is Rs. 100 crore or more, the disputes may be referred to an Arbitral Tribunal of three Arbitrators.

(b) Qualification of Arbitrators: It is a term of this contract that each member of the Arbitral Tribunal shall be Graduate Engineer with experience in execution of public works engineering contracts, and he should have worked earlier at a level not lower than the Chief Engineer (equivalent to level of Joint Secretary to the Government of India).The aforesaid educational qualification and work experience shall be mandatory for appointment as Arbitrator. The age of Arbitrator at the time of appointment shall not exceed 75 years. An Arbitrator may be appointed notwithstanding the total number of active arbitration cases with him.

(c) Parties to select Arbitrator: Based on the criteria specified above, a list of empanelled Arbitrators has been prepared in CPWD, and the parties shall have option to select an Arbitrator from the list sent to them.”

3. The material on record indicates that, pursuant to the disputes that arose between the parties, a Notice under Section 21 of the Act dated 10.10.2025 was issued by the Petitioner. To which the respondent did not file any reply.

4. Hence, the Petitioner has approached this Court by way of the present Petition seeking the appointment of a sole Arbitrator.

5. The law with respect to the scope and standard of judicial scrutiny under Section 11(6) of the 1996 Act has been fairly well settled. This Court in Pradhaan Air Express Pvt Ltd v. Air Works India Engineering Pvt Ltd [2025 SCC OnLine Del 3022] has extensively dealt with the scope of interference at the stage of Section

11. The Court held as under:-

“9. The law with respect to the scope and standard of judicial scrutiny under Section 11(6) of the 1996 Act has been fairly well settled. The Supreme Court in the case of SBI General Insurance Co. Ltd. v. Krish Spinning,¹ while considering all earlier pronouncements including the Constitutional Bench decision of seven judges in the case of Interplay between Arbitration Agreements under the Arbitration & Conciliation Act, 1996 & the Indian Stamp Act, 1899, In re² has held