Yashwardhan Raghuwanshi Vs. District & Sessions Judge and another
Madhya Pradesh High Court (Division Bench (DB)- Two Judge)
WRIT PETITION, 19656 of 2020, Judgment Date: Feb 26, 2021
Law Laid Down:-
As seen from the language employed in the definition clause of “Court” in Section 2(1)(e) of the Arbitration Act and Conciliation Act,1996, the Legislature intended to confer power in respect of the disputes involving arbitration on the highest judicial Court of the District so as to minimize the supervisory role of the Courts in the arbitral process and, therefore, purposely excluded any Civil Court of a grade inferior to such Principal Civil Court, or any Court of Small Causes.
Thus, in respect of commercial disputes involving arbitration only the Commercial Court of the status of District Judge or Additional District Judge would be the competent court to entertain the matters under Sections 9, 14, 34 & 36 of the Arbitration Act and Conciliation Act,1996. The impugned order to the extent of classifying the commercial disputes having arbitration as subject matter on the basis of mere valuation and conferring powers therefor on the Court of XX Civil Judge Class-I, Bhopal, would be violative of relevant provisions of law. However, it can be sustained in so far as distribution of the work of commercial disputes as per the value of the claim in cases other than arbitration matters are concerned.
The District Judge by virtue of Sections 7 & 15 of the Civil Courts Act of 1958 would be entitled to distribute such work amongst any of the Additional District Judges under his supervision, but not to any Court of Civil Judge Class-I or Senior Civil Judge, or any Court of Small Causes.
The Court referred:
• Ess Kay Fincorp Limited and ors. vs. Suresh Choudhary and others, AIR 2020 Raj 56.
• Fun N. Fud vs. GLK Associates, 2019 SCC Online Guj 4236.
• Vijay Cotton and Fiber Company Vs. Agarwal Cotton Spinning Private Limited, R/Appeal No. 216 of 2018 decided on 11.02.2019.
• Kirtikumar Futarmal Jain vs. Valencia Corporation, in 2019 SCC Online Guj 3972.
• Kandla Export Corporation and another vs. OCI Corporation and another, (2018) 14 SCC 715. • State of Maharashtra, through Executive Engineer vs. Atlanta Limited, (2014) 11 SCC 619.
Yashwardhan Raghuwanshi Vs. District & Sessions Judge and another