The 2015 Amendment to the Arbitration and Conciliation Act is prospective. Section 12(5) regarding arbitrator ineligibility does not apply to arbitral proceedings commenced prior to 23.10.2015, and an executing court cannot retrospectively apply these amendments to invalidate an existing arbitral award.

JASGURPREET SINGH PURI, J.

1. By this common judgment, a bunch of seven Civil Revision Petitions bearing Nos.CR-5847-2025, CR-8920-2025, CR-8878-2025, CR-9445-2025, CR-8589-2025, CR-7999-2025 and CR-6164-2025 is being decided. In all the aforesaid revision petitions, an important question of law has arisen because of which the same are being taken up together for adjudication. For the sake of convenience and brevity, the facts are being taken from CR-5847-2025.

2. For the purpose of methodical elucidation and structure, this judgment is arranged under the following heads:-

A. FACTUAL MATRIX

3. The present is a Revision Petition under Article 227 of the Constitution of India for setting aside of the order dated 08.07.2025 (Annexure P-1) passed in EXE-173 of 2020, whereby the Learned Executing Court has dismissed the execution application of the petitioners by holding the award passed under Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (hereinafter referred to as “the Arbitration Act”) to be unenforceable with a further prayer for restoration/remanding the execution application with a direction to the learned Executing Court to get the award executed on merits.

4. The petitioners herein entered into an agreement dated 23.10.2006 with the Respondent No.1-Miller for milling of the paddy vide Annexure P-2. Thereafter, when a dispute arose between the parties, an Arbitrator was appointed dated, who passed an award dated 17.07.2012 vide Annexure P-3 in favor of the petitioner to which the respondents filed their objections under Section 34 of the Arbitration Act which were dismissed vide order dated 27.02.2019 (Annexure P-4).

5. The petitioners thereafter preferred an execution application before the learned Executing Court seeking execution of the aforesaid award which was dismissed vide impugned order dated 08.07.2025 (Annexure P-1) being unenforceable on the ground that the award was inexecutable due to being in conflict with Section 12(5) of the Arbitration Act.

B. LEGAL ISSUE

6. In the present bunch of seven Revision Petitions, a common issue of law has arisen, whereby the learned Executing Court has dismissed the execution applications of the petitioner(s) on the ground of un-enforceability. Accordingly, the legal issue that falls for consideration before this Court is as follows:

“Whether execution of award in cases where arbitral proceedings were initiated prior to the amendment of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, which came into effect on 23.10.2015 is enforceable or not on the ground of being in conflict with Section 12(5) of the Arbitration Act ?”

C. ARGUMENTS ADVANCED BY LEARNED COUNSELS FOR THE PETITIONERS

7. Learned counsels for the petitioners submitted that a short controversy involved in all the petitions is that the learned Executing Court has dismissed the execution application preferred by the decree holders on the ground that the award passed by the Sole Arbitrator is unenforceable due to being in conflict with Section 12(5) of the Arbitration Act and because of this reason, the execution application stood dismissed being unenforceable. They further submitted that