$~11 * IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI + ARB.P. 1857/2025 HONASA CONSUMER LIMITED .....Petitioner Through: Mr. Udian Sharma, Advocate through video-conferencing.

versus RDV DESIGN TECHNOLOGIES PRIVATE LIMITED .....Respondent Through: Mr. Aayush Gautam, Advocate through video-conferencing.

CORAM:

HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE HARISH VAIDYANATHAN SHANKAR

O R D E R

% 20.01.2026

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 Vendor Agreement dated 29.05.2023 [“Agreement”] .

2. Clause 13.3 of the Vendor Agreement, which contains the arbitration clause, reads as follows:

“13.3. If any dispute arises between the Parties hereto during the subsistence of this Agreement or thereafter, in connection with, or arising out of, this Agreement, the dispute shall be referred to arbitration under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (Indian) to be adjudicated by a sole arbitrator to be appointed by Purchaser. Arbitration shall be held at Delhi India. The proceedings of arbitration shall be in the English language. The arbitrator's award shall be final and binding on the Parties. The Agreement shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of India. The courts of Delhi, India, shall have exclusive jurisdiction in connection with this Agreement.”

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 27.08.2025 was issued by the Petitioner. Vide reply dated 04.09.2025, the Respondent refused to give its consent for invoking arbitration and denied the existence of any disputes between the parties.

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 that scope of inquiry at the stage of appointment of an Arbitrator is limited to the extent of prima facie existence of the arbitration agreement and nothing else.

10. It has unequivocally been held in paragraph no. 114 in the case of SBI General Insurance Co. Ltd. that observations made in Vidya Drolia v. Durga Trading Corpn.,³ and adopted in NTPC Ltd. v. SPML Infra Ltd.,⁴ that the jurisdiction of the referral court when dealing with the issue of “accord and satisfaction” under Section 11 extends to weeding out ex-facienon-arbitrable and frivolous disputes would not apply after the decision of Re : Interplay. The abovenoted paragraph no. 114 in the case of SBI General Insurance Co. Ltd. reads as under:—

“114. In view of the observations made by this Court in In Re : Interplay (supra), it is clear that the scope of enquiry at the stage of appointment of arbitrator is limited to the scrutiny of prima facie existence of the arbitration agreement, and nothing else. For this reason, we find it difficult to hold that the observations made in Vidya Drolia (supra) and adopted in NTPC v. SPML (supra) that the jurisdiction of the referral court when dealing with the issue of “accord and satisfaction” under Section 11 extends to weeding out ex-facie non-a