Pushpa Sathyanarayana, J. - (1.) This Original Petition is filed seeking for the appointment of a Sole Arbitrator to decide the disputes that have arisen between the petitioner and the respondent under the Construction Agreement dated 15.03.2014.
(2.) According to the petitioner, it is a registered Society under the provisions of the Tamil Nadu Societies Registration Act read with the Tamil Nadu Apartment Ownership Act, 1994 and its members, numbering 92, are the purchasers of the flats developed by the respondent after entering into individual Construction Agreements. As per the said agreements, the respondent has duty bound to do maintenance for one year, which came to an end during September 2017, and thereafter it has to handover the corpus fund, which the respondent collected at the rate of Rs.20,000/- from each apartment, to the petitioner society. Thus, the respondent is liable to pay a sum of Rs.20,00,000/- (Rupees twenty lakhs only) to the petitioner. However, the respondent, while admitting the said liability, requested the petitioner to permit it to pay the due amount in 18 equal monthly installments of Rs.1,00,000/-, i.e., Rs.18,00,000/- for which, the petitioner also expressed consent to avoid any litigation. However, the respondent only paid a sum of Rs.2,00,000/- (Rupees two lakhs only), of which, last installment was made on 20.04.2018. Thus, the outstanding now mounted to Rs.21,00,000/- (Rupees twenty one lakhs only).
(3.) Besides the above, the petitioner Society made so many allegations with respect to the quality of construction, not fulfilling the promises like provisioning of so many amenities, illegally re-connecting electricity line for sewerage treatment plant, which necessitated the petitioner to pay fine of Rs.3,35,716/- to the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board, constructing and selling eight more flats in the common land already earmarked for and owned by all the 92 owners, etc., Thus, according to the petitioner, it invoked arbitration clause (clause 13) of the Construction Agreement and sent a legal notice dated 04.04.2019 nominating an Arbitrator, which was responded to by the respondent on 21.05.2019 with untenable grounds necessitating the petitioner to invoked Section 11(6) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (in short, "the Act") to file this petition seeking the aforesaid prayer.;