SHIVAKANT PRASAD, J. - (1.) I have heard Mr. Anirban Ray, Advocate appearing for the petitioner and Mr. Alok Ghosh, Advocate for the Kolkata Municipal Corporation.
(2.) This is an application under Section 11(6) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996. The background of the case is that the petitioner no.1 is a joint venture and petitioner nos.2 and 3, namely, GPT Infrastructure Ltd. having its registered office at GPT Centre JC-25, Sector-III, Salt Lake, Kolkata- 700 098 and SMC Infrastructures Pvt. Ltd. having its registered office at Konark Towers, Opposite Shree Saibaba Temple, Shree Ghantali Devi Road, Thane (West), 400 062, Maharashtra. The petitioners were involved in various civil constructions and engineering works. The petitioner no.1 participated in a tender on 11th August, 2011 floated by the respondent vide tender notice No.DG(WS)/50/2011-12/KMC and the said tender was accepted. An agreement was arrived at by and between the parties. There is a clause in the said agreement that if there is any dispute between the parties that should be referred to arbitration. Under the said agreement clause 25 relates to settlement of dispute in arbitration. It would appear from Annexure-NNN at page 720 of volume 5 of this petition that Hon'ble Justice Pranab Kumar Chattopadhyay, former Judge, High Court was appointed by the competent authority of Kolkata Municipal Corporation as the sole arbitrator for resolving the disputes arising out of the contract for "Construction of Jetty and Raw Water Pumping Station at Ma- er Ghat (Bagbazar) for Dhapa Water Treatment Plant" between GPT-SMC(JV) and the Kolkata Municipal Corporation.
(3.) The said appointment was communicated vide memo no.L- 66/LAW/2016-17 dated December 30, 2016. A letter was also communicated to the Chief Municipal Law Officer to follow up with the Hon'ble Mr. Justice P.K. Chattopadhyay in order to expedite the arbitration proceedings. In spite of such agreement no steps were taken by the learned Arbitrator to proceed with the arbitration. Accordingly, the petitioner by letter dated 29th March, 2017 and 20th June, 2017 called upon the respondent to make alternative appointment vide letters marked with the letters PPP and QQQ respectively. However, the respondent have not taken any steps to name or appoint another new arbitrator even after the lapse of ten months from the date of appointment of Justice Retired Pranab Kumar Chattopadhyay, vide letter dated 30th December, 2016.;