High Court of Punjab and HaryanaARB/404/2025allowed

Punjab Agro Foodgrains Corporation Ltd And ANR v. M/S Nanak Rice And General Mills And Another

2026-02-16Mr. Justice Jasgurpreet Singh Puri9 pages

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"120. In view of the above discussion, we formulate our conclusions on this aspect. First, the separability presumption contained in Section 16 is applicable not only for the purpose of determining the jurisdiction of the Arbitral Tribunal. It encapsulates the general rule on the substantive independence of an arbitration agreement. Second, parties to an arbitration agreement mutually intend to confer jurisdiction on the arbitral tribunal to determine questions as to jurisdiction as well as substantive contractual disputes between them. The separability presumption gives effect to this by ensuring the validity of an arbitration agreement contained in an underlying contract, notwithstanding the invalidity, illegality, or termination of such contract.

Third, when the parties append their signatures to a contract containing an arbitration agreement, they are regarded in effect as independently appending their signatures to the arbitration agreement. The reason is that the parties intend to treat an arbitration agreement contained in an underlying contract as distinct from the other terms of the contract; and Fourth, the validity of an arbitration agreement, in the face of the invalidity of the underlying contract, allows the Arbitral Tribunal to assume jurisdiction and decide on its own jurisdiction by determining the existence and validity of the arbitration agreement. In the process, the separability presumption gives effect to the doctrine of competence'competence.

165. The legislature confined the scope of reference under Section 11(6'A) to the examination of the existence of an arbitration agreement. The use of the term "examination" in itself connotes that the scope of the power is limited to a prima facie determination. Since the Arbitration Act is a self'contained code, the requirement of "existence" of an arbitration agreement draws effect from section 7 of the Arbitration Act. In Duro Felguera (supra), this Court held

that the referral courts only need to consider one aspect to determine the existence of an arbitration agreement'whether the underlying contract contains an arbitration agreement which provides for arbitration pertaining to the disputes which have arisen between the parties to the agreement. Therefore, the scope of examination under Section 11(6'A) should be confined to the existence of an arbitration agreement on the basis of Section 7. Similarly, the validity of an arbitration agreement, in view of Section 7, should be restricted to the requirement of formal validity such as the requirement that the agreement be in writing. This interpretation also gives true effect to the doctrine of competence'competence by leaving the issue of substantive existence and validity of an arbitration agreement to be decided by arbitral tribunal under Section 16. We accordingly clarify the position of law laid down in Vidya Drolia (supra) in the context of Section 8 and section 11 of the Arbitration Act.

166. The burden of proving the existence of arbitration agreement generally lies on the party seeking to rely on such agreement. In jurisdictions such as India, which accept the doctrine of competence'competence, only prima facie proof of the existence of an arbitration agreement must be adduced before the referral court. The referral court is not the appropriate forum to conduct a minitrial by allowing the parties to adduce the evidence in regard to the existence or validity of an arbitration agreement. The determination of the existence and validity of an arbitration agreement on the basis of evidence ought to be left to the arbitral tribunal. This position of law can also be gauged from the plain language of the statute."

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"110. The scope of examination under Section 11(6'A) is confined to the existence of an arbitration agreement on the basis of Section 7. The examination of validity of the arbitration agreement is also limited to the requirement of

% formal validity such as the requirement that the agreement should be in writing.

111. The use of the term 'examination' under Section 11(6'A) as distinguished from the use of the term 'rule' under Section 16 implies that the scope of enquiry under section 11(6'A) is limited to a prima facie scrutiny of the existence of the arbitration agreement, and does not include a contested or laborious enquiry, which is left for the arbitral tribunal to 'rule' under Section 16. The prima facie view on existence of the arbitration agreement taken by the referral court does not bind either the arbitral tribunal or the court enforcing the arbitral award.

112. The aforesaid approach serves a two'fold purpose - firstly, it allows the referral court to weed out nonexistent arbitration agreements, and secondly, it protects the jurisdictional competence of the arbitral tribunal to rule on the issue of existence of the arbitration agreement in depth.

113. Referring to the Statement of Objects and Reasons of the Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) Act, 2015, it was observed in In Re: Interplay (supra) that the High Court and the Supreme Court at the stage of appointment of arbitrator shall examine the existence of a prima facie arbitration agreement and not any other issues. The relevant observations are extracted hereinbelow:

"209. The above extract indicates that ) .) ) / ) / ) 01 ) 1 / / ) 2% 3) ) ) ' / )

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)) 4 / 5 / ) % Accordingly, the "other issues" also include examination and impounding of an unstamped instrument by the referral court at the Section 8 or Section 11 stage. The process of examination, impounding, and dealing with an unstamped instrument under the Stamp Act is not a time bound process, and therefore does not align with the stated goal of the Arbitration Act to ensure expeditious and time'bound appointment of arbitrators.[...] (Emphasis supplied)

114. In view of the observations made by this Court in In Re: Interplay (supra), it is clear that the scope of enquiry at the stage of appointment of arbitrator is limited to the scrutiny of prima facie existence of the arbitration agreement, and nothing else. For this reason, we find it difficult to hold that the observations made in Vidya Drolia (supra) and adopted in NTPC v. SPML (supra) that the jurisdiction of the referral court when dealing with the issue of "accord and satisfaction" under Section 11 extends to weeding out ex' facie non'arbitrable and frivolous disputes would continue to apply despite the subsequent decision in In Re: Interplay (supra).

115. The dispute pertaining to the "accord and satisfaction" of claims is not one which attacks or questions the existence of the arbitration agreement in any way. As held by us in the preceding parts of this judgment, the arbitration agreement, being separate and independent from the underlying substantive contract in which it is contained, continues to remain in existence even after the original contract stands discharged by "accord and satisfaction".

116. The question of "accord and satisfaction", being a mixed question of law and fact, comes within the exclusive jurisdiction of the arbitral tribunal, if not otherwise agreed upon between the parties. Thus, the negative effect of competence'competence would require that the matter falling within the exclusive domain of the arbitral tribunal, should not be looked into by the referral court, even for a prima facie determination, before the arbitral tribunal first has had the opportunity of looking into it."

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+* "39. In view of the foregoing, I do not think it necessary to burden this judgement with any further prolixity with more analysis of every other judgement cited by either side on the doctrine of merger. In my opinion, the SC Judgement is clearly an opinion that the Arbitral Award ought to have been held as not being sustainable in exercise of the jurisdiction under Section 37 of the Act read with Section 34 of the Act. The Supreme Court explicitly ruled that it was not commenting on the merits. Taking such explicit findings into account and that too in the context of the specific nature of the jurisdiction that Section 34 and Section 37 of the Act entails, I am of the opinion that no case has been made out to deviate from the norm that the parties are restored to the original pre'Arbitral Award position. Therefore, necessarily, this Section 11 Application deserves to be allowed. Consequently, this Application is finally disposed of in the following terms:"

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