Arbitral awards may be composite if the issues relate closely, but interest must adhere to contractual terms.

1. By means of filing this appeal under S.37 of The Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (''the Arbitration Act'' hereunder) the appellant has challenged the judgment and order dated 28.06.2019 passed by the District Judge, West Tripura, Agartala in case No. Civil. Misc. (Arbitration) 18 of 2018. The proceedings before the learned District Judge arose out of an application filed under S.34 of the Arbitration Act by the present appellant for setting aside the arbitral award dated 29.03.2010 passed by the sole Arbitrator in the arbitral proceedings arising out of 05 contracts out of which 04 contracts were executed between Sri. Swapan Kumar Pal and Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd. (ONGC) and one contract was executed between Smt. Namita Paul, wife of Swapan Kumar Paul and ONGC. The appeal filed by Smt.Namita Paul (case No. Civil Misc. (Arbitration) 17 of 2018) has been decided separately.

2. The factual context of the case is as under:
The appellant hired different types of vehicles including car, taxi, hard top ambulance, non - AC TATA Indigo LX etc for carrying out appellant corporation's operations under 04 different contracts which were executed between the appellant and Sri Swapan Kumar Paul on different dates. Contract No.9010014028 was executed on 16.03.2011, contract No. 9010014069 was executed on22.03.2011, contract No.9010016874 was executed on 07.12.2012 and contract No.9010018962 was executed on 18.12.2013. Other than the hard top ambulance and the emergency vehicles, all other vehicles were hired by the appellant for carrying out duty for 12 hours per day and the hard top ambulance and all other emergency vehicles were hired for performing duty for 24 hours per day. In terms of the contracts executed between the parties, the respondent placed his vehicles at the disposal of the appellant within the stipulated time. Log books were maintained for each of the vehicles to record the kms / distance run by the vehicle. The claimant respondent had asserted in his claim statement that the appellant often used to keep many of the hired vehicles off the road without assigning any duty to those vehicles. This apart, the appellant in breach of the contract, used to keep the vehicles out of duty without any advance intimation to the respondent which caused huge loss to the respondent. When the respondent raised bills claiming the hiring charges, the appellant arbitrarily reduced the bill amount on the ground that excess kms was recorded in the log books. The appellant reduced the kms in the log book without consulting the claimant and refused to sanction the bill amount. As a result, dispute cropped up between the parties.

3. In terms of the Arbitration clause contained in the contract, the disputes were referred to the Sole Arbitrator for adjudication.

4. The appellant claimed that the claims having been raised by the claimant beyond the permissible period of 01 year such claims would be hit by clause 7.6 of the contract. The appellant further claimed that no wrongful deductions from the bills raised by the claimants were made. Deductions which were made from those bills were in accordance with the contract executed between them.

5. The Arbitrator framed separate issues for determination of the disputes and passed the following award(s):
"AWARD(S)
In view of the foregoing discussions, the instant five arbitral proceedings succeed and the claims of the Claimants in all the five matters are allowed in full. The Respondent - ONGC shall pay the Claimants:
(i) The sum of Rs.6,87,563.09 in Matter No.1, arising out of Contract No.9010014028 dated 16/03/2011
(ii) The sum of Rs.2