* IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI Date of decision: 13.03.2026 + ARB.P. 1059/2025 MAYA DEVI .....Petitioner Through: Mr. C.M. Verma and Mr.

Piyush Agarwal, Advocates.

versus GTL INFRASTRUCTURE LIMITED .....Respondent Through: Mr. Gurdeep Singh, Advocate.

CORAM:

HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE HARISH VAIDYANATHAN SHANKAR % JUDGEMENT (ORAL)

1. The present Petition has been filed under Section 11 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, $~2, seeking the appointment of a Sole Arbitrator to adjudicate upon the disputes inter se the parties, arising out of a License Agreement dated 06.04.2010 read with the Supplementary Agreement dated 28.10.2010.

2. The material on record indicates that the Arbitration clause is envisaged in the License Agreement as Clause 21. The said clause is set out herein below:

“21. Any dispute or claim between the parties hereto arising out of or relating to this agreement, or its implementations and / or its effect, or the breach, termination, due to efflux of time or otherwise, or invalidity thereof, either during its subsistence or after its termination, shall be referred to the arbitration of a sole

1 Act

Reconciliation Act, 1996. The Arbitration shall be held at Delhi.”

3. Learned Counsel for the Petitioner further draws the attention of this Court to the Notice under Section 21 of the Act, invoking Arbitration, which is dated 15.10.2024 and forms the part of the material on record.

4. Mr. Gurdeep Singh, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the Respondent, on instructions, submits that he has no objection to the appointment of a Sole Arbitrator to adjudicate the disputes as between the parties.

5. It is apposite to mention here that the legal position governing the scope and standard of judicial scrutiny under Section 11(6) of the Act is no longer res integra. A three-Judge Bench of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in SBI General Insurance Co. Ltd. v. Krish Spinning, arbitrator in accordance with the provisions of Arbitrations and, after taking into consideration the authoritative pronouncement of the seven-Judge Bench in Interplay Between Arbitration Agreements under Arbitration Act, 1996 & Stamp Act, 1899, In re, (2024) 6 SCC 1, comprehensively delineated the contours of judicial intervention at the stage of Section 11of the Act. The excerpt of Krish Spg (supra) reads as under:-

“(c) Judicial interference under the 1996 Act

110. The parties have been conferred with the power to decide and agree on the procedure to be adopted for appointing arbitrators. In cases where the agreed upon procedure fails, the courts have been vested with the power to appoint arbitrators upon the request of a party, to resolve the deadlock between the parties in appointing the arbitrators.

111. Section 11 of the 1996 Act is provided to give effect to the mutual intention of the parties to settle their disputes by arbitration in situations where the parties fail to appoint an arbitrator(s). The parameters of judicial review laid down for Section 8 differ from

2 (2024) 12 SCC 1

those prescribed for Section 11. The view taken in SBP & Co. v. Patel Engg. Ltd., (2005) 8 SCC 618 and affirmed in Vidya Drolia v. Durga Trading Corpn., (2021) 2 SCC 1 that Sections 8 and 11, respectively, of the 1996 Act are complementary in nature was legislatively overruled by the introduction of Section 11(6-A) in 2015. Thus, although both these provisions intend to compel parties to abide by their mutual intention to arbitrate, yet the scope of powers conferred upon the courts under both the sections are different.

112. The difference between Sections 8 and 11, respectively, of the 1996 Act is also evident from the scope of these provisions. Some of these differences are:

112.1. While Section 8 empowers any “judicial authority” to refer the parties to arbitration, under Section 11, the power to refer has been exclusively conferred upon the High Court and the Supreme Court.

112.2. Under Section 37, an appeal lies against the refusal of the judicial authority to refer the