Best Eastern Business House Pvt Ltd. v. Mina Pradhan
Court – Calcutta High Court
Citation – AP-COM – 296 of 2025
Date – 23.09.2025
The Hon’ble Calcutta High Court has held that the mandate of an Arbitrator under Section 29A(4) can only be extended by the High Court and not by the Principal Civil Court or Commercial Court having territorial jurisdiction over the subject matter.
The Court held,
“43. The said decision was appealed from and the Hon’ble Apex Court in the context and in those set of facts which were before the Meghalaya High Court, held as follows:-
“2. The power under sub-Section (4) of Section 29A of the Arbitration Act vests in the Court as defined in Section 2(1)(e) of the Arbitration Act. It is the principal Civil Court of original jurisdiction in a district which includes a High Court provided the High Court has ordinary original civil jurisdiction.
3. In this case, the High Court does not have the ordinary original civil jurisdiction. The power under sub-Section (6) of Section 29A is only a consequential power vesting in the Court which is empowered to extend the time. If the Court finds that the cause of delay is one or all of the arbitrators, while extending the time, the Court has power to replace and substitute the Arbitrator(s). The said power has to be exercised by the Court which is empowered to extend the time as provided in subSection (4) of Section 29A of the Arbitration Act.”
44. The decision of the Hon’ble Apex Court thus, is not a binding precedent in the present factual context.
45. It may have so happened that, the application for extension of the mandate is filed before the Commercial Court at Siliguri and while considering such application, the court was of the opinion that, the delay was attributable to the Arbitrator and that the learned Arbitrator was not acting in a manner which would be beneficial for disposal of a time-bound proceeding, hence fees should be reduced, and/or substitution should be made. In such a situation, a court inferior to the court appointing the arbitrator would substitute and reduce fees, thereby, interfering with order passed by the High Court. This cannot be the legislative intent.”
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