Arbitration appealability under section 37: procedural tribunal directions on expert evidence are not appealable as interim measures.

Section 37 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 permits appeals only from the orders specifically enumerated in that provision, and section 5 confines court intervention to situations expressly authorised by statute. Directions and observations concerning the appointment and use of an expert report, evidentiary objections, and the conduct of arbitral proceedings did not amount to orders granting or refusing interim measures under section 17. As a result, they were not appealable under section 37, even if they might affect future proceedings. Procedural or interlocutory rulings of the arbitral tribunal cannot be challenged by appeal unless they fall within the statutory appeal scheme.

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Issues: Whether appeals under section 37 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 were maintainable against the arbitral tribunal's orders and findings concerning the appointment and use of an expert report, and whether those orders amounted to interim measures under section 17.

Analysis: Section 37 permits appeals only from the orders expressly specified in that provision. Read with section 5, the scheme of the Act shows that judicial intervention in arbitral proceedings is confined to the instances specifically provided by statute. The impugned directions and observations related to the conduct of proceedings, the expert process, and evidentiary objections, but they did not grant or refuse any interim measure of protection under section 17. Even if the observations had some bearing on future proceedings, that did not convert them into appealable section 17 orders. The Court held that a party cannot short-circuit arbitral proceedings by appealing against observations or procedural directions that fall outside section 37.

Conclusion: The appeals were not maintainable because the impugned orders were not orders granting or refusing interim measures under section 17 and were not appealable under section 37.

Ratio Decidendi: An appeal under section 37 lies only from the specific orders enumerated in that provision, and procedural or interlocutory observations of the arbitral tribunal that do not amount to an order granting or refusing an interim measure under section 17 are not appealable.

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