https://www.taxtmi.com/caselaws?id=429359 At the referral stage, the Court confined its inquiry to the existence of an arbitration agreement and held that objections based on unstamped underlying contracts did not bar appointment of an arbitrator. Applying separability and the arbitral tribunal's competence to rule on its own jurisdiction, it treated the pending stamp duty issue before the Collector as not determinative at this stage. The Court followed the settled position that non-payment or insufficiency of stamp duty does not, by itself, render an arbitration agreement unenforceable for pre-appointment purposes. The petitions were therefore entertained and a sole arbitrator was appointed for the consolidated disputes. en-us Thu, 20 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0530 Sat, 22 Oct 2022 12:47:00 +0530 TaxTMI RSS Generator https://www.taxtmi.com/caselaws?id=429359 At the referral stage, the Court confined its inquiry to the existence of an arbitration agreement and held that objections based on unstamped underlying contracts did not bar appointment of an arbitrator. Applying separability and the arbitral tribunal's competence to rule on its own jurisdiction, it treated the pending stamp duty issue before the Collector as not determinative at this stage. The Court followed the settled position that non-payment or insufficiency of stamp duty does not, by itself, render an arbitration agreement unenforceable for pre-appointment purposes. The petitions were therefore entertained and a sole arbitrator was appointed for the consolidated disputes. Case-Laws Indian Laws Thu, 20 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0530 https://www.taxtmi.com/caselaws?id=429359