Supreme Court Imposes Rs.50K Costs On A Litigant For Approaching It In An Arbitration Matter [Read Order]

The Supreme Court imposed costs of Rs. 50,000 on a litigant for approaching it in an arbitration matter.

"We may only reiterate what we have stated in Deep Industries Limited v. Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited and Another (2019) SCC OnLine SC 1602 and several other cases that we have frowned upon persons knocking at the doors of the Writ Court in arbitration matters. This is one more such case.", said the bench comprising Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman, Navin Sinha and Krishna Murari while dismissing an SLP filed by 

In this case, M/S Ved Prakash Mithal had filed a suit before the Delhi High Court for recovery of a sum of Rs. 2,59,95,243/ against the Principal, Kirorimal College. Since there was an arbitration clause in the agreement, the High Court appointed an arbitrator to adjudicate the dispute. This order was assailed before the Apex Court by M/s Ved Prakash Mithal by filing SLP.

Recently, Justice Nariman led bench had dismissed another SLP by imposing costs and observed that a petition under Article 227 of the Constitution of India against dismissal of a petition under Section 16 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act can be entertained only when there is perversity in the order which leads to a patent lack of inherent jurisdiction. "Unfortunately, parties are using this expression which is in our judgment in Deep Industries Ltd., to go to the 227 Court in matters which do not suffer from a patent lack of inherent jurisdiction. This is one of them. Instead of dismissing the writ petition on the ground stated, the High Court would have done well to have referred to our judgment in Deep Industries Ltd. and dismiss the 227 petition on the ground that there is no such perversity in the order which leads to a patent lack of inherent jurisdiction. The High Court ought to have discouraged similar litigation by imposing heavy costs. The High Court did not choose to do either of these two things.", the court had observed in that case.

Case: M/S VED PRAKASH MITHAL AND SONS vs. PRINCIPAL KIRORIMAL COLLEGE [SLP(c) No. 11883/2020]

Coram: Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman, Navin Sinha and Krishna Murari 

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