ORDER

The petitioner has filed the present petition seeking for appointment of an arbitrator to adjudicate upon the disputes that have arisen between the petitioner and the respondent in execution of the work order bearing No.W.O.No.C/C/00/045/053 dated

23.11.2000.

2. The facts as made out in the petition are that petitioner was awarded work under the work order dated 23.11.2000 for construction of building for space grade solar panel project and BHEL Electronics Division, Electronic City, Bangalore. It is the assertion of the petitioner that the work was completed on 28.03.2003 as per the certificate issued by the respondent.

3. Petitioner submits that General Conditions of Contract would be applicable to all transactions between the petitioner and the respondent and Clause-58 of the said General Conditions of Contract provides for arbitration.

4. It is further submitted that in light of the disputes that have arisen relating to payments to be made to the petitioner, demand for appointment of arbitrator has been made as per the request letters dated 29.06.2012 and 11.06.2013 and in light of the untenable reply of the respondent dated 11.07.2013 and after having made subsequent demands which were in vain the petitioner finally got issued a legal notice invoking the arbitration clause on 11.07.2014.

5. It is submitted that in light of absence of any response to the said legal notice, present petition has been filed seeking for appointment of an arbitrator.

6. After the matter was heard on various occasions wherein the respondent had raised contentions specifically pointing out that the present petition was instituted in the year 2017 is barred by time as the demand even as per the say of the petitioner for appointment of arbitrator was made on

24.08.2004.

7. An application under Section 5 of the Limitation Act has been filed by way of IA No.1/2021 seeking for condonation of delay of 385 days in filing the present petition.

8. Learned counsel for the respondent has filed the objections to the main petition and has contended that the dispute itself cannot be entertained as the petitioner has sought to raise dispute after a period of 16 years and hence, legal redressal for a stale claim ought not to be permitted.

9. It is further submitted that even as per the completion certificate issued by the respondent at Annexure-B on 28.03.2003 work has been completed and any dispute ought to have been raised immediately thereafter and the respondent having kept quiet by merely relying on the correspondences that have been addressed is legally untenable while it ought to be noted that the limitation itself to raise dispute had arisen in 2003, and has never been interrupted.

10. It is further contended that the application under Section 5 of the Limitation Act is liable to be dismissed as the application for appointment of arbitrator has been filed in the year 2017 when in terms of Section 21 of the Arbitration Act, the time for appointment of an arbitrator would commence even as per the admitted and undisputed facts from 24.08.2004 when a request for appointment of Arbitrator has been made. Reliance is also placed on Section 43 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 to contend the starting point of limitation commencing to run in terms of Section 21 of the Act would be the date when first request for dispute being referred to arbitration is received by the respondent. Attention is drawn to the documents produced by learned counsel for the petitioner as document No.2 along with the memo dated 05.10.2020 which is dated 24.08.2004 and is a letter requesting for appointment of an arbitrator as certain disputes had arisen relating to payments.

11. Learned counsel for the respondent has also relied on the observations made by the Hon’ble Apex court in the case of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. & Anr. v/s M/s. Nortel Networks India Pvt. Ltd., referred to supra and would contend that the present petition is not maintainable on two grounds namely:

(1) The pe