Sabyasachi Bhattacharyya - (1.) The award-holder in an arbitral proceeding under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (hereinafter referred to as "the 1996 Act") has preferred the instant application under Article 227 of the Constitution of India. By the impugned order, the executing court upheld a challenge to the maintainability of the proceeding for execution of the arbitral award and dismissed the execution case.
(2.) Threefold objections were taken by the award debtor to the execution case: (i) the execution case was filed before the court of an Additional District Judge, which was not a Court under Section 2 (1) (e) of the 1996 Act; (ii) the Additional District Judge did not have authority to transfer the case to the Court of the Civil Judge (Senior Division); and (iii) since an application under Section 34 of the 1996 Act had been filed by the award-debtor before the court of the District Judge at Alipore, District: South 24-Parganas previously, the execution case also had to be filed in the said court under Section 42 of the 1996 Act.
(3.) Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the first question was answered in favour of the petitioner and as such, being unchallenged, need not be dwelt upon. The trial judge placed reliance upon the judgement of West Bengal Housing infrastructure Development Corporation v. M/s Impression, 2016 AIR(Cal) 236, wherein it was held that the court of an Additional District Judge was a 'Court' within the meaning of Section 2 (1) (e) of the 1996 Act.;