Arbitration limitation bars stale claim where appointment request came decades after the cause of action accrued.

A belated invocation of arbitration decades after the cause of action accrued cannot reset limitation for a Section 11(6) request. The claim arose when the work was completed in 1985/1986, but arbitration was invoked only after about thirty-two years, so the applicant could not treat the later legal notice as the starting point under Article 137 of the Limitation Act, 1963. The Supreme Court held that residual limitation cannot revive a dead or stale claim, and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited v. Nortel Networks India Private Limited did not assist on these facts. The application for appointment of an arbitrator was therefore barred by limitation and rejected.

---

---

Issues: Whether an application under Section 11(6) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, seeking appointment of an arbitrator on a claim arising from work completed decades earlier, was barred by limitation and liable to be dismissed as a stale claim.

Analysis: The right to claim the alleged dues arose in 1985/1986 when the work was completed. The request invoking arbitration was made only after about thirty-two years. In such circumstances, the applicant could not shift the starting point of limitation to the date of the belated legal notice invoking arbitration. The residual period under Article 137 of the Limitation Act, 1963, could not be used to revive an otherwise dead and stale claim. The decision in Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited v. Nortel Networks India Private Limited did not assist the applicant because it did not concern a demand and invocation of arbitration made after such an extraordinary delay.

Conclusion: The application under Section 11(6) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 was barred by limitation and was rightly rejected.

Final Conclusion: The appeal could not succeed, as the claim was too stale to justify appointment of an arbitrator.

Ratio Decidendi: A belated invocation of arbitration made decades after the cause of action has accrued cannot postpone limitation for a Section 11(6) application, and a stale claim remains barred notwithstanding a later notice seeking appointment of an arbitrator.

---