Whether Rejection Of Application For Amendment of Counter-Statement Constitutes An 'Interim Award': Calcutta High Court Explains

The Calcutta High Court on Friday while hearing an appeal to an impugned order expounded in detail on whether an interim relief granted by an Arbitrator would constitute an 'interim award' thereby allowing it to be set aside under Article 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996. After examining the rival contentions, Justice Moushumi Bhattacharya proceeded to make observations on the following issues, Maintainability of the petition under Section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996: The counsel for the petitioner submitted that the impugned order of the Arbitrator rejecting the amendment to the Statement of Defence of the respondent for incorporating a Counter-Claim constitutes an "Interim Award" under the 1996 Act and would therefore come within the purview of section 34 for setting aside of the said award. The Court further took into consideration that the bar of limitation on which the petitioner's application was rejected by the tribunal is different from the delay contemplated under section 23 and of the 1996 Act. "Having found that the counter-claim of Lindsay was beyond the scope of the arbitration agreement and the arbitral tribunal could, therefore, not make an interim arbitral award based on the counterclaim, the impugned order dated 15th October, 2020 falls outside the purview of the recourse available for setting aside an arbitral award under Section 34 of the Act.