* IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI Date of Decision : 13.04.2026 + ARB.P. 2072/2025 MS. MIRA DEVI AND ANR .....Petitioners Through: Mr. Sandeep Gaur, Advocate.

versus NINE O NINE STRUCTURES PVT LTD .....Respondent Through: Ms. Swati Singh, Advocate.

CORAM:

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

HARISH VAIDYANATHAN SHANKAR, J.

1. The present Petition, filed under Section 11(6) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, $~2, seeks the appointment of an Arbitrator for the purpose of resolution of disputes inter se the parties arising out of an Agreement to Sell dated 10.08.2021², which contains an unnumbered arbitration clause.

2. The Dispute Resolution clause as set out in the said Agreement reads as under:

“That in case of any dispute the arising or connected with the present agreement, the same shall be referred to a sole arbitrator appointed with mutual consent or by any arbitrator appointed by the competent court of jurisdiction. The place of arbitration shall be Delhi. The Hon’ble Court of Delhi shall have exclusive jurisdiction to try and adjudicate any dispute by and between the parties to this agreement.”

3. The material on record indicates that the Petitioner herein

1 Act

invoked arbitration in terms of Section 21 of the Act vide legal notice dated 26.08.2025.

4. Ms. Swati Singh, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the Respondent, opposes the present Petition and objects to the appointment of a Sole Arbitrator. She submits that the Petitioners are impermissibly seeking to conflate issues arising under a separate and distinct agreement with the present Agreement, and that such an exercise is untenable in law.

5. It is further contended that no arbitrable disputes survive between the parties inasmuch as the Petitioners have already accepted the refund, as recorded in the legal notice dated 01.08.2025, and therefore, no subsisting dispute remains for adjudication by way of arbitration.

6. This Court has heard learned counsel appearing on behalf of the parties and is of the considered view that, in proceedings under Section 11 of the Act, the jurisdiction of the Court is circumscribed and limited in scope.

7. At this juncture, it is apposite to note 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, (2024) 12 SCC 1, 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

2 Agreement intervention at the stage of Section 11 of 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 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