Holding that “it is one thing for an advocate to act and plead on behalf of a party in a proceeding and it is another for an advocate to act as the party himself”, the Supreme Court recently ruled that serving an arbitral award on an advocate or agent of a party is not equivalent to serving the award on the party.
Dismissing an appeal in Benarsi Krishna Committee and Ors v Karmyogi Shelters Pvt Ltd, the court held that the references to a party in section 31(5) and section 34(2) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, clearly mean a party as defined in section 2(h) and do not include an agent or advocate representing a party.
An arbitral award made on 12 May 2004 in a dispute between the parties was received the next day by the advocate for Karmyogi. However, Karmyogi received a copy of the signed award only in December 2004. An application to set aside the order under section 34 of the act filed by Karmyogi in February 2005 was dismissed by a single judge of Delhi High Court on the ground that it was time-barred.
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The update of court judgments is compiled by Bhasin & Co, Advocates, a corporate law firm based in New Delhi. The authors can be contacted at lbhasin@bhasinco.in or lbhasin@gmail.com. Readers should not act on the basis of this information without seeking professional legal advice.