IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB & HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Date of Decision:22.04.2026 Santosh Rani .......Petitioner Versus Bathinda Development Authority and another .......Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE JASGURPREET SINGH PURI Present:- Mr. Lupil Gupta, Advocate and Mr. Harshdeep Singh, Advocate for the petitioner.

Ms. Anu Chatrath, Senior Advocate with Ms. Dhamanpreet Kaur, Advocate for the respondents.

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JASGURPREET SINGH PURI J.(Oral)

1. Learned counsel for the petitioner Mr. Harshdeep Singh, submitted that there is a valid agreement (Annexure P-1) between the parties, which contains Arbitration Clause No. 25 pertaining to the dispute resolution mechanism. He submits that as per Clause 25(v), all disputes or differences in respect of which the decision is not final and conclusive shall, at the request of either party made through a communication sent by registered A.D. post, be referred to the sole arbitration of the Superintending Engineer of the Bathinda Development Authority, which is the respondent in the present petition.

2. He further submitted that the Superintending Engineer of the respondent-department cannot be appointed as an arbitrator on account of conflict of interest, in view of Section 12(5) of the Act as well as the law laid down by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Perkins Eastman Architects DPC and another vs. HSCC (India) Limited, 2020 (20) SCC 760. He further submitted that once a dispute has arisen between the parties, the petitioner had earlier invoked the pre-arbitration dispute resolution mechanism as contained in Clause 25(ii) of the aforesaid contract by issuing a notice (Annexure P-8) dated 15.09.2025 to the Divisional Engineer (C-I) for settlement of the dispute; however, no action was taken by the respondent in this regard. Thereafter the petitioner had issued a notice dated 22.12.2025 under Section 21 of the Act vide Annexure P-9 requesting for appointment of an independent arbitrator under Clause 25 (v), (vi) and (ix) of the contract and proposing the names of two arbitrators, however, no action was taken by the respondents. Therefore, he submitted that this Hon’ble Court may appoint an independent and impartial arbitrator for adjudicating the dispute.

3. On the other hand, learned Senior Counsel appearing on behalf of the respondents submitted that there is no dispute regarding the existence of the agreement (Annexure P-1) or the arbitration clause contained therein, and there is also no dispute regarding the invocation of the arbitration clause by the petitioner by issuing notice (Annexure P-9) to the respondents, to which the respondents did not reply. She, however, submitted that firstly the present petition is premature, since the dispute is required to be resolved in the first instance at the level of the Engineer-in- Charge as per Clause 25 of the contract and according to the respondents, the said pre-arbitration mechanism was not properly resorted to by the petitioner.

4. Secondly, she submitted that the petitioner had earlier filed a writ petition before this Court bearing CWP No. 4542 of 2018, which was disposed of vide judgment dated 26.02.2018 with a direction to pass a speaking order, and thereafter a speaking order was passed pursuant thereto; therefore, the dispute is not arbitrable. Thirdly, she submitted that the petitioner-contractor did not complete the work within the stipulated time period and till date, the petitioner-contractor has neither applied for extension of time nor has submitted the final bill for the work executed and has further failed to furnish documents relating to quality control and verification of the work executed, therefore, the dispute is non-arbitrable and cannot be referred to arbitration.

5. Fourthly, learned Senior Counsel for the respondents submitted that the present petition under Section 11 of the Act has been filed belatedly, inasmuch as the speaking order pursuant to the earlier writ petition was passed in the year 2018, whereas the petitioner i