Arbitration appointment procedure prevails over Section 11 challenge where a nominee arbitrator has already been appointed under agreed rules.

Where parties have agreed an arbitration appointment procedure and one party has already validly invoked it under the ICC Rules by appointing its nominee arbitrator, a later Section 11 application to constitute a different tribunal for the same disputes is not maintainable. The proper course for any objection to the constitution of the tribunal is to pursue the challenge mechanism under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, rather than initiate a parallel Section 11 proceeding. The Court therefore rejected the petition and upheld the tribunal constituted under the agreed procedure.

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Issues: Whether a petition under Section 11 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 is maintainable when one party has already invoked the agreed arbitration procedure under the ICC Rules and a nominee arbitrator has been appointed.

Analysis: The arbitration clause provided for disputes to be referred first to senior management and, failing settlement, to a three-member tribunal with arbitration to be conducted under the ICC Rules or UNCITRAL Rules, with New Delhi as the seat and Indian law as the governing law of the agreement. Once the respondent invoked the clause under the ICC Rules and appointed its nominee arbitrator, the petitioner could not re-invoke the same arbitration agreement through Section 11(6) to seek constitution of a different tribunal. The remedy against an appointment made under the agreed procedure lay in challenge before the tribunal and thereafter under the Act, not by a parallel Section 11 proceeding.

Conclusion: The Section 11 petition was not maintainable and was rejected.

Final Conclusion: A tribunal constituted under the agreed arbitration procedure cannot be supplanted through a subsequent Section 11 application, and objections to such constitution must be pursued under the statutory challenge mechanism.

Ratio Decidendi: Where the parties have agreed to an appointment procedure and one party has already validly invoked that procedure, a subsequent application under Section 11 to constitute another tribunal for the same disputes is not maintainable.

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