TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2022 (7) TMI 1614
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.... Civil Procedure, 1908, to bring on record additional documents. 2. This petition, under Article 227 of the Constitution of India, assails the said order. 3. To my mind, the present petition is not maintainable, in view of the following enunciation of the law, to be found in paras 45 and 46 of the report in SBP & Co. v. Patel Engineering Ltd. [ (2005) 8 SCC 618] : "45. It is seen that some High Courts have proceeded on the basis that any order passed by an arbitral tribunal during arbitration, would be capable of being challenged under Article 226 or 227 of the Constitution of India. We see no warrant for such an approach. Section 37 makes certain orders of the arbitral tribunal appealable. Under Section 34, the aggrieved par....
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....the award is pronounced unless, of course, a right of appeal is available to them under Section 37 of the Act even at an earlier stage." (Emphasis supplied) There is no equivocation, whatsoever, in the exposition of the legal position by the Supreme Court, in the afore-extracted passages. The Court can be approached against an interim order in arbitral proceedings only if the order is appealable under Section 37^1 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 ("the 1996 Act"). In all other cases, the litigant, who deems himself aggrieved, has to await the conclusion of the arbitral proceedings and rendition of award therein. 4. Appeals to the Court lie, against arbitral orders, only under subsection (2) of Section 37, if they are r....
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.... proceedings, make an interim arbitral award on any matter with respect to which it may make a final arbitral award". IFFCO v. Bhadra Products [(2018) 2 SCC 534] clarifies that an interim award would be one that finally adjudicates an issue on which the parties have joined the issue and which, therefore, could have been decided in the final award, but made at an interim stage. 7. It is nobody's case that the impugned order dated 18th June 2022 constitutes an "interim award" within the meaning of Section 2(1)(c) read with Section 31(6) of the 1996 Act. Admittedly, therefore, it is not amenable to challenge under Section 34. 8. The sequitur, to the legal impregnability of the impugned order to challenge under Section 34, Mr. Rajshekhar ....
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....assed as grounds of challenge to the final award that may come to be passed in the arbitral proceedings. To maintain the current and flow of the arbitral proceedings, therefore, the Supreme Court has proscribed, by judicial fiat, challenges to such interlocutory orders midstream. That, in my view, is what these words intend to convey. 13. Mr. Rajshekhar Rao also drew my attention to paras 18, 20 and 22 of the decision in Bhaven Construction v. Executive Engineer Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Ltd. [(2022) 1 SCC 75], which read thus: "18. In any case, the hierarchy in our legal framework, mandates that a legislative enactment cannot curtail a constitutional right. In Nivedita Sharma v. COAI [(2011) 14 SCC 337], this Court referred ....
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....diless under the statute or a clear "bad faith" shown by one of the parties. This high standard set by this Court is in terms of the legislative intention to make the arbitration fair and efficient. ***** 20. In the instant case, Respondent 1 has not been able to show exceptional circumstance or "bad faith" on the part of the appellant, to invoke the remedy under Article 227 of the Constitution. No doubt the ambit of Article 227 is broad and pervasive, however, the High Court should not have used its inherent power to interject the arbitral process at this stage. It is brought to our notice that subsequent to the impugned order of the sole arbitrator, a final award was rendered by him on merits, which is challenged by Resp....
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.... is, apparently, that the arbitral litigant should not be left rudderless in the arbitral ocean. It is predicated on the right to legal redress, which is, to all intents and purposes, fundamental. Bhaven Construction, therefore, is more in the nature of a cautionary note, and is not intended to provide a haven for launching a challenge, in writ proceedings, against every interlocutory arbitral order. 17. The obvious reason why Bhaven Construction would not help the petitioner is because, even as per SBP, the party is not remediless in ventilating its grievances against the interim order passed by the Arbitral Tribunal. The remedy would, however, lie against the interim award or the final award that the arbitral tribunal would choose to p....