Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996: s. 37 – Appeals under – Against the orders passed in applications u/s. 151 r/w O. VII r. 10 CPC and u/s. 2(1)(e)(i) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, seeking return of petition filed u/s. 34 of 1996 Act – Maintainability of – Held: Section 37(1) makes it clear that appeals shall only lie from the orders set out in sub-clause (a), (b) and (c) thereof and no others – The refusal to set aside an arbitral award must be under s. 34 i.e. after the grounds set out in s. 34 have been applied to the arbitral award in question and after the courts have turned down such grounds – In the present case there was no adjudication u/s. 34 – Therefore, the appeals filed in the present case do not fall within s. 37 and hence not maintainable.

ss. 20, 31(4), 42 and 2(1)(e) – Juridical seat of arbitral proceedings – What constitutes ‘judicial seat’ of arbitral proceeding – In the facts of the present case whether the ‘seat’ of the arbitration proceedings would be in ‘New Delhi’ or ‘Faridabad’ – Held: The moment a seat is designated by agreement between the parties, it is akin to an exclusive jurisdiction clause, which would then vest the Courts at the ‘seat’ with exclusive jurisdiction for the purpose of regulating arbitral proceedings – In order to determine whether the ‘seat’ of the arbitral proceedings has, infact, been indicated in the agreement between the parties, it is to be seen that wherever there is express designation of a ‘venue’ and there is no designation of any alternative place as the ‘seat’, combined with supranational body of rules governing the arbitration, and no other significant contrary indicia, the stated ‘venue’ would be actually the ‘seat’ of the arbitral proceedings – The arbitration clause in the present case states that “Arbitration Proceedings shall be at New Delhi/Faridabad” indicates that the proceedings shall be held at either of the two places – Both the places have been designated as the ‘seat’ of the arbitration proceedings – In all the cases, since the proceedings were finally held at New Delhi and the awards were signed in New Delhi, would lead to the conclusion that both the parties have chosen New Delhi as ‘seat’ of arbitration u/s. 20(1) – Therefore, both parties have chosen that the Court at New Delhi alone would have exclusive jurisdiction over the arbitral proceedings.

Judgments/Orders: Interpretation of judgments – Principles – Held: Judgments of courts are not to be construed as statutes – They are not to be read as Euclid’s theorems – Observations made therein must be read in the context in which they appear. Judgment having conflicting portions – Held: A judgment must be read as a whole, so that conflicting parts may be harmonised to reveal the true ratio of the judgment – If harmonising is not possible, first it should be seen if ratio decidendi can be called out without the conflicting portion – If not the binding nature of the precedent on the point on which there is a conflict in judgment, comes under a cloud.