263 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB & HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH ***

ARB-488-2025 (O&M)

Date of Decision: 12.01.2026 M/s North Star Towers Private Limited and another .... Petitioners Versus Rajbir and others ..... Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE JASGURPREET SINGH PURI Present: Mr. Ajiteshwar Singh, Advocate, for the petitioner.

Mr. Yashvardhan Goyal, Advocate &

Mr. Vishesh Dhaka, Advocate, for the respondents.

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JASGURPREET SINGH PURI , J . (ORAL)

1. The present petition has been filed under Section 11(6) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Act’) praying for appointment of an independent Sole Arbitrator to adjudicate upon the disputes which have arisen between the parties.

2. Learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that two agreements were executed between the petitioners and the respondents vide Annexures P-1 & P-2. Annexure P-1 is an Agreement for Sale and Annexure P-2 is a Collaboration Agreement and there exists a valid arbitration clause i.e. Clause 13 in the aforesaid Annexure P-1 and a similar clause i.e. Clause 22 is present in Annexure P-2 as well. He further submitted that when a dispute arose between the parties, the petitioners invoked the aforesaid arbitration clause by issuing a notice under Section 21 of the Act to the respondents vide Annexure P-7 dated 16.08.2024 by proposing the name of the Arbitrator but no response was received from the respondents in this regard. Therefore, the present petition has been filed under Section 11 of the Act for appointment of a Sole Arbitrator by this Court.

3. On the other hand, learned counsel for the respondents while referring to the reply has submitted that the objection of the respondents is that the Agreements which have been attached by the petitioners vide Annexures P-1 and P-2 are fabricated and therefore, no arbitrator may be appointed by this Court.

4. I have heard learned counsels for the parties.

5. The only objection which has been raised by learned counsel for the respondents is pertaining to the allegation that the Agreements so referred to by the petitioner are fabricated agreements. However, this Court is of the considered view that the law in this regard pertaining to the aforesaid objection is well settled. It is a settled law that the reference Court at the time of considering a petition under Section 11 of the Act is only to see prima facie existence of an arbitration clause. Hon’ble Supreme Court in “SBI General Insurance Company Limited Vs. Krish Spinning”, 2024 SCC Online SC 1754 has held as under:-

“110. The scope of examination under Section 11(6-A) is confined to the existence of an arbitration agreement on the basis of Section 7. The examination of validity of the arbitration agreement is also limited to the requirement of formal validity such as the requirement that the agreement should be in writing.

111. The use of the term ‘examination’ under Section 11(6-A) as distinguished from the use of the term ‘rule’ under Section 16 implies that the scope of enquiry under section 11(6-A) is limited to a prima facie scrutiny of the existence of the arbitration agreement, and does not include a contested or laborious enquiry, which is left for the arbitral tribunal to ‘rule’ under Section 16. The prima facie view on existence of the arbitration agreement taken by the referral court does not bind either the arbitral tribunal or the court enforcing the arbitral award.

112. The aforesaid approach serves a two-fold purpose – firstly, it allows the referral court to weed out nonexistent arbitration agreements, and secondly, it protects the jurisdictional competence of the arbitral tribunal to rule on the issue of existence of the arbitration agreement in depth.

113. Referring to the Statement of Objects and Reasons of the Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) Act, 2015, it was observed in In Re: Interplay (supra) that the High Court and the Supreme Court at the stage of appointment of arbitrator shall examine the existen