M.N.TRAPASIA Vs. DIVISIONAL RAILWAY MANAGER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Petitioner has sought for appointment of sole Arbitrator for adjudicating the dispute that is said to have arisen between petitioner and respondents pursuant to Agreement dtd. 17/1/2017.

(2.) Heard Mr.Arpit Patel, learned counsel appearing for the petitioner and Mr.Siraj Gori, learned counsel appearing for respondent No.l. Respondent No.2 is served and unrepresented. Perused the records.

(3.) A tender came to be floated by the respondent for grant of work of "Cess Repair by Contractor's own Earth at various Isolated Locations on UP and Down Line and Associated works under jurisdiction of Divisional Engineer (South), Vadodara on Surat - Miyagam Sec. ", with an estimated cost of Rs.2,47,77, 070.00. On receiving the bids, it was found that bid offered by petitioner was lowest and petitioner was declared as LI and as such his bid came to be accepted on 23/9/2016 and a contract came to be entered into between petitioner and respondent No.l on 17/1/2017. On the ground of the petitioner having not fulfilled the contractual obligations, the respondent authority is said to have terminated the contract on 13/4/2018. However, petitioner has denied the cause assigned by respondents for termination of the contract was attributable to petitioner. On 14/11/9/2018 petitioner got issued a notice explaining the circumstances and sought for considering its claim for payment. On account of there being no reply, petitioner got issued a notice under Sec. 21 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (for short "the Act") on 27/7/2019 as required under Clause 64 of the Agreement (General Conditions of Contract - GCC) calling upon the second respondent to appoint an Arbitrator. In response to the said notice, the Deputy Chief Engineer (Works) informed the petitioner by communication dtd. 28/8/2019 and called upon the petitioner to submit the specified and item-wise amounts alleged to be due, resulting in petitioner issuing a notice/communication dated 02.01.2 02 0 addressed to the second respondent whereby the details as sought for in the communication dtd. 28/8/2019 was furnished and the demand for referring the matter to an impartial and independent Arbitrator was sought for. As there was no reply or response from the respondents, petitioner has presented this petition under Sec. 11(6) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, seeking for appointment of sole Arbitrator.