Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996—Sections 34 & 37(1)(c)—Challenge to Arbitral Award—Patent Illegality, Perversity, and Compensation—Appeal under Section 37(1)(c) against dismissal of Section 34 petition challenging an arbitral award—Appellants contended encashment of performance security was without pleading or proof of loss, alleging violation of Sections 73 and 74 of the Contract Act, 1872—The Court held that appellate interference is limited to grounds under Section 34; re-examination of evidence is impermissible unless the award is patently illegal, perverse, or contrary to fundamental law—The arbitrator’s adverse inference due to appellants’ failure to produce salary records was a plausible exercise of discretion, not perverse—Partial encashment of performance secu...

Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996—Arbitral Award—Reasoned Award and Appeal Against Setting Aside—Under Sections 31(3), 34, and 37 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, an arbitral award must state intelligible and adequate reasons linking material on record to conclusions, unless parties agree otherwise or the award is on agreed terms—An award is “reasoned” if it demonstrates a logical nexus between evidence and findings, even if reasoning is brief—Courts under Section 34 may set aside awards only if they are patently illegal, against public policy, or lack intelligible reasoning; mere inadequacy of reasons does not suffice—Appeals under Section 37 are limited to grounds in Section 34 and do not permit re-appreciation of evidence or substitution of the arbitrator’s view&m...

A. Custody of Minor—Mother’s right to relocate abroad—Welfare principle—Mother seeking permission to travel abroad with minor child for higher education—Held, welfare of the child is paramount but must be balanced with the mother’s fundamental right to personal development under Article 21—A mother cannot be compelled to choose between her child and her career—No material to show harm to child—Permission granted with safeguards. [Paras 34–42, 47] B. Visitation Rights—Protection of father–child relationship—Held, relocation of the child cannot nullify father’s visitation rights—Court directed structured virtual interaction, vacation custody in India, disclosure of residence and schooling, and affidavit of undertaking—Visitation rights pr...

Contempt of Courts Act, 1971—Section 10; Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996—Sections 17, 27(5)—Maintainability of Contempt Petition—Petitioners sought initiation of contempt proceedings against respondents for allegedly violating an interim order passed by a Sole Arbitrator under Section 17 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996—Respondents challenged the maintainability of the petition—The Court held that the legal fiction created by Section 17(2) for enforceability of interim orders is limited to execution and does not authorize filing contempt petitions directly before the High Court, bypassing the procedure under Section 27(5)—Historical interpretation of Section 27(5) shows that an Arbitral Tribunal may refer a breach of its orders to the Court for contempt—Accordingly, in ca...

Criminal Procedure Code, 1973—Sections 482 & 200—Quashing of FIR—Compromise—Victim’s Consent—The victim appeared before the Court and expressed her unwillingness to pursue prosecution due to personal inconvenience and family commitments—The Court considered her anguish and held that she could not be compelled to undergo repeated court appearances—FIR registered under Section 354D of the Penal Code, 1860 (stalking) was examined in light of the victim’s compromise—While compromise and consent of the victim were given weight, the Court noted the seriousness of the alleged act—entering a car without consent and causing fear—which could not be ignored entirely—The Court directed that, in the event of non-payment of costs, the victim would be examined through vide...

Patents Act, 1970—Section 16(1)—Divisional Application—Filing After Grant—Not Maintainable—Section 16(1) of the Patents Act, 1970 unequivocally mandates that a divisional application must be filed before the grant of the parent patent—The right to file a divisional lies solely with the applicant and must be exercised with due diligence prior to grant—Where the applicant, in response to a Section 10(5) plurality objection, asserts existence of a single inventive concept and merely expresses a conditional intent to file a divisional if objections are sustained, and the Controller thereafter waives all objections and grants the patent, the condition triggering the right to file a divisional does not arise—An attempt to file a divisional post-grant is therefore impermissible and rightly rejected...

Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012—Age determination—Bail—Ss. 29, 30—In prosecutions under the POCSO Act, determination of the victim’s age assumes critical significance—Where bone ossification test is relied upon, the upper age indicated in the reference range must be considered for assessing minority—Though consent of a minor has no legal sanctity, the factual matrix—including the apparent maturity and intellectual capacity of the victim and existence of a consensual romantic relationship with the accused—may be relevant for the limited purpose of bail—The object of the Act is to shield children below 18 years from sexual exploitation and not to criminalise consensual romantic relationships between adolescents—At the post-charge stage, Section 29 elevat...

Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996—Ss. 29, 34, 37—Constitution of India—Arts. 226, 227—Scope of judicial interference—Interlocutory orders of Arbitral Tribunal—Proceedings before an Arbitral Tribunal are subject to minimal judicial intervention, consistent with the legislative intent of expeditious dispute resolution—Interlocutory orders passed by the Tribunal in exercise of its procedural discretion—such as permitting or refusing production of documents, summoning of witnesses, or regulating evidence—are not amenable to challenge under Articles 226 or 227 of the Constitution, except in rare and exceptional circumstances—Parties are ordinarily required to await the final arbitral award, with grievances against procedural orders being raised, if permissible, in proceedings und...

Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002—Anticipatory Bail—Applicability of Twin Conditions—Under Section 45 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, the statutory twin conditions—that the court must be satisfied there are reasonable grounds to believe the accused is not guilty of money laundering and is not likely to commit any offence while on bail—apply with full rigour even to anticipatory bail applications—The PMLA, being a special legislation with a non-obstante clause and negative language, mandates a strict and non-routine approach to bail—Dilution of the twin test on grounds of prolonged incarceration under Article 21 is relevant to regular bail and cannot be extended to anticipatory bail, particularly where custodial interrogation is necessary—In complex cases involving syn...

A. Civil Procedure Code, 1908—Section 96—Appeal against decree—Recovery suit based on promissory notes and cheques—Proof of execution—Suit for recovery of money decreed on basis of two promissory notes and five undated cheques—Promissory notes bearing signatures of deceased borrower—Defendants neither specifically pleaded forgery of handwriting/signatures nor led evidence to disprove execution—Plaintiff proved signatures by summoning bank record—Undated cheques, though not bills of exchange, held to possess corroborative evidentiary value—Trial Court rightly decreed recovery applying preponderance of probabilities—No infirmity in decree—Appeal dismissed. [Paras 18 to 24, 29] B. Evidence Act, 1872—Burden of proof—Denial of signatures—Failure t...