The court affirmed that allegations of fraud do not inherently prevent arbitration; complex fraud claims may require civil court adjudication, while the group of companies doctrine may bind non-signatories under certain conditions.

ORDER

The above Original Petition has been filed under Section 11(6) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act , 1996 for appointment of an Arbitrator to resolve the dispute between the petitioner and the respondents herein.

2. The respondents 1 to 4 were the employees of the petitioner who were transferred from the Cred Avenue Private Limited Company of the petitioner. The respondents 1 to 4 were serving with the petitioner from October 2020 / September 2021 in various capacities. They had tendered resignation during the month of November / December 2022

3. The details of their employment with the petitioner and their eventual resignation from the roles in the petitioner company are as under:-

4. Sensing something was amiss with en masse resignation of the respondents 1 to 4 herein and other respondents, the petitioner had appointed M/s.Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India LLP (in short “Deloitte”), to carry on a fact finding review into suspected data infiltration by the respondents. The said company viz., M/s.Deloitte has given a Forensic Report dated 09.03.2023.

5. After the respondents 1 to 4 resigned from the roles of the petitioner, the records reveal that the 5th respondent was incorporated on 20.01.2023. It was promoted by one Mr.Vinod Vamsy Gunnam, Ms.Vaddi Satya Saye Lakshmi and Mr.Vivek Kumar. One Mr.Gaurav Kumar was appointed as i/c Managing Director along with Mr.Vinod Vamsy Gunnam as the Director of the fifth respondent C ompany.

6. It is the admitted position that Mr.Vinod Vamsy Gunnam is the brother in law of the third respondent herein namely Mr.Ramadasu Bandaru and Ms.Vaddi Satya Saye Lakshmi is the sister of Mr.Vinod Vamsy Gunnam. There is no dispute on the same.

7. Under these circumstances, the petitioner herein had filed separate applications under Section 9 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act , 1996 for various interim measures and secured interim orders on 20.04.2023.

8. By the aforesaid order dated 20.04.2023, Mr.Adarsh Subramanian, Advocate was appointed as an Advocate Commissioner along with Ms.Shanmathi. A Report was submitted by the Advocate Commissioner enclosing the report of experts from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) before this Court in Arb.Appl.No.145, 151 & 154 of 2023.

9. Pursuant to the Report filed by the Advocate Commissioners enclosing the Report of the expert viz., PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the application was closed with the following observations:-

“After recording the endorsement made by the learned counsel for the applicant, as stated supra, these applications are disposed of and liberty is granted as prayed for. The hard disc, which was seized by the Advocate Commissioner, pursuant to the directions given by this Court, shall continue to remain in the Registry until further orders of this Court.”

10. Pursuant to the aforesaid order dated 11.08.2023, petitioner issued a notice under Section 21 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act , 1996 to all the respondents.

11. The learned Senior Counsel for the petitioner has submitted that despite a notice under Section 21 of the Arbitration and C