Stay of money awards under arbitration must follow CPC principles; statutory bodies get no special security treatment.

While granting stay of enforcement of a money award under Section 36 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, the Court must apply the principles governing stay of money decrees under the Code of Civil Procedure and cannot give a statutory body special treatment merely because of its institutional character. Security conditions must be fixed under the statutory scheme, not on subjective views about credibility or on selective treatment of only part of the award. Where the arbitral award contains multiple monetary components, the stay order must address the full decretal exposure. A direction securing the entire award only by bank guarantee was therefore unsustainable, and the stay required modification by insisting on deposit of a substantial part of the decretal amount.

---

---

Issues: Whether, while granting stay of enforcement of a money award under Section 36 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, the Court could direct only furnishing of a bank guarantee and treat a statutory undertaking differently from a private party.

Analysis: The proviso to Section 36(3) requires the Court, in a money award, to have due regard to the principles governing stay of money decrees under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908. That framework does not permit special treatment merely because the judgment debtor is a statutory body. The arbitral award contained multiple monetary components, and the stay order dealt only with one component while ignoring the remaining claims. The form of security and the conditions for stay must be fixed by applying the statutory scheme and not by subjective assessments about whether a party is a fly-by-night operator or by its institutional character.

Conclusion: The direction to secure the entire award only by bank guarantee was unsustainable, and the stay order required modification by directing deposit of a substantial part of the decretal amount as a condition for stay.

---