Sudhir Dubey and Another vs Rashmi Hans

Madan B. Lokur, J.—This is a petition filed u/s 11 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996.

The parties had entered into an agreement on 11th January, 1999 to appoint an Arbitrator in the event some disputes arise between the parties.

Dispute arose between the parties with the result that the Petitioner approached this Court by filing OMP No. 321/2003 u/s 9 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996. The interim measure sought for by the Petitioner was to the effect that the Defendant be restrained from creating any third party interest in the Second floor alongwith terrace of the residential property No. B-152, Second Floor, East of Kailash, New Delhi.

The Petitioner has made a reference to the Arbitration agreement dated 11th January, 1999 in that OMP also.

After notice in that OMP, the respondent denied her signatures on the arbitration agreement. Her denial was recorded in Court on 23rd April, 2004 in OMP No. 321/2003 the issue then arose whether the signatures were those of the Respondent or not. This was sent for determination to the Central Forensic Science Laboratory. On 13th August, 2004 the CFSL gave its report in respect of the arbitration agreement to the following effect:

There is no fundamental difference observed between the questioned and the standard signatures. There are natural variations. The opinion is based on the cumulative consideration of the aforesaid reasons and with the assumption that the Xerox admitted signatures marked At 15 to A-19 which are included in the opinion are the true reproduction of the original signatures and no tampering has been done in these signatures.

On a perusal of the report of the CFSL it appears that the signatures on the arbitration agreement are those of the Respondent.

That being the position, I am satisfied that there is an arbitration agreement between the parties. Once such a determination is arrived at and there are, undoubtedly, some disputes between the parties, the appropriate course would be to refer the disputes to arbitration so that they can be adjudicated upon.

Learned Counsel for the respondent has contended that the invocation of the arbitration agreement by letter dated 22nd September, 2004 is barred by time.

As already mentioned above the report of the CFSL was made available on 13th August, 2004. Until the report of the CFSL, it was not possible for the Petitioner to invoke the arbitration agreement since it was not clear till that point of time whether the respondent had entered into an Arbitration Agreement or not. Barely a month after the Report of the CFSL, the petitioner invoked the arbitration agreement. The contention of learned Counsel for the respondent that the invocation of the arbitration agreement is barred by time is, therefore, rejected.

Under the circumstance, I appoint Justice Jaspal Singh (Retd.) as the Arbitrator to adjudicate the disputes between the parties.

The arbitration petition is disposed of in the above terms.