Delhi High Court Reiterates Limited Scope Of Section 34 Of Arbitration & Conciliation Act
Live LawThe High Court of Delhi pronounced a judgement in the matter of “Centre for Research Planning and Action v. National Medicinal Plants Board Ministry of AYUSH Government of India” FAO 161/2022 dated 8th January, 2025 re-iterating the limited scope of Section 34 of The Arbitration and Conciliation Act. Respondent refused to entertain any claim when invoices were raised after March 2016 since the second agreement expired on March 31, 2016, prompting the Appellant to initiate arbitration as per the dispute resolution clause agreed between the parties Relying upon the judgements delivered in the case of MMTC Ltd. v. Vedanta Ltd. and NHAI v. M. Hakeem, the court brought it to the notice that courts have no power to modify an arbitral award and doing so would be breach of powers conferred upon them. There exists a distinguished modus operandi in scrutinizing an award delivered by legally trained mind and an award by arbitral tribunal members which was propounded in the case of Delhi Airport Metro Express Ltd. Therefore, after hearing both parties and analysing the submissions made, bench held that the arbitral award passed by learned technical expert did not suffer from any perversity and patent illegality, and thus had set aside the impugned judgement dated 03.06.2022, passed by the learned Single Judge of the Hon'ble Patiala House Court in OMP 79/2020.