Dinesh Maheshwari, J. - (1.)By way of this application under Section 11 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 ["the Act of 1996"], the petitioner seeks appointment of an arbitrator to adjudicate upon and decide its dispute with the respondent arising out of, and relating to, the work of "provision of AMN (Ammunition) Dump Military Station, Umroi, Ri-Bhoi District, Meghalaya" under the contract agreement No.CESZ/UMR/12 of 2008-09 dated 18.05.2008.
(2.)The petitioner has made this request while stating the facts that the work aforesaid was to be completed within 24 months from the date of its commencement i.e., 06.02.2009, but could not be completed within the stipulated time due to various reasons not attributable to the petitioner including the delay in handing over the site and site plans and delay in supplying the requisite material. It is submitted that the petitioner requested the respondents to grant extension of time explaining the reasons for delay under the letter dated 26.12.2014 but did not receive any response. The case of the petitioner is that upon the respondents failing to pay the final bill, a schedule of claims was submitted to them with a request to settle the matter but again, without any response.
(3.)It is submitted that after exhausting all efforts to settle the dispute, the petitioner ultimately sent a letter dated 28.08.2015 to the respondent No.2, the Engineer-in-Chief Head Quarters in terms of the condition 70 of the General Conditions of Contract [IAFW 2249] requesting him to appoint an arbitrator to adjudicate upon the dispute but, the respondent No.2 did not make any effort to appoint the arbitrator. It is further submitted that the aforesaid letter was followed up with another letter dated 01.10.2015, again requesting the Engineer-in-Chief to appoint the arbitrator while indicating that upon his failure to do so, the petitioner would be approaching the appropriate forum for appointment of an arbitrator.