Arbitral award review is limited: courts cannot reappreciate evidence where the tribunal has taken a possible view.

An arbitral award cannot be set aside on judicial review merely because another view of the evidence is possible, where the tribunal has taken a possible view on contract construction and the material before it. The Supreme Court held that the Division Bench erred by isolating selected emails instead of reading the correspondence as a whole, and that it could not reappreciate evidence or substitute its own factual inference for that of the tribunal. Contemporaneous correspondence and oral evidence were capable of supporting findings on breach, availability of coal, damages, and limitation, so the conclusion of no evidence was unsustainable and the majority award was restored.

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Issues: Whether the Division Bench was justified in setting aside the arbitral majority award by holding that the findings on breach, availability of coal, and market price of coal were perverse or unsupported by evidence, and whether the award could be interfered with under the limited scope of review under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996.

Analysis: The arbitral tribunal had examined the contract, the full correspondence between the parties, and oral evidence, and had found that the respondent refused to lift the contracted quantities at the contractual price while the appellant remained ready and able to supply. The Court held that the Division Bench erred in isolating a few emails and in treating them as conclusive without reading them with the surrounding correspondence and contractual setting. It was held that, under the governing principles of review of arbitral awards, a court cannot reappreciate evidence or substitute its own factual inference where the tribunal has taken a possible view. The Court further held that the evidence relied upon by the tribunal, including contemporaneous correspondence and testimony on market conditions, was capable of supporting the findings on availability of coal and on damages, and that the Division Bench's conclusion of "no evidence" was unsustainable.

Conclusion: The interference with the majority award was unjustified, and the tribunal's findings on breach, damages, and limitation were restored as they constituted a possible view on the material before it.

Ratio Decidendi: An arbitral award supported by a possible view on evidence and contract construction cannot be set aside in judicial review merely because another view is possible, and courts must read contractual correspondence as a whole before branding findings as perverse or unsupported by evidence.

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