Summary
The Court rejected successive objections to enforcement of two foreign arbitral awards as barred by constructive res judicata. Earlier objections, despite being styled as objections to maintainability, had already involved enforceability and attained finality. The debtor could not split those questions into successive proceedings or obtain a merits rehearing under Section 48. Its undisclosed conduct aimed at frustrating recovery supplied an additional reason to refuse relief.
Issues
- Whether enforceability objections could be renewed after earlier execution and review orders attained finality.
- Whether Section 48 permitted a fresh examination of the contractual and evidentiary merits of the awards.
Provisions considered
- Sections 48 and 49, Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996Required maintainability and enforceability to be considered together at the threshold and recognised the restricted scope of interference with foreign awards. (¶¶ 13, 14, 16, 17)
Held
- The earlier objections went beyond mere procedure and concerned enforceability. Orders treating the awards as executable decrees, the appeals and review had attained finality; relabelling the later application could not reopen them. (¶ 13)
- All available objections could and ought to have been raised in the earlier round. Section 48 does not contemplate piecemeal consideration of maintainability followed by enforceability, and the successive application was barred by constructive res judicata. (¶ 14)
- The debtor’s unexplained name and address changes and resort to insolvency proceedings expressly to prevent the creditor receiving proceeds indicated an attempt to overreach the Court. Its failure to disclose these developments supplied an additional ground to reject discretionary relief. (¶ 15)
- An enforcement court cannot be invited to take a fresh merits look at the foreign award. The Court declined to reopen the remaining objections, noted the High Court’s permissible assessment and left the correctness of alleged arbitral errors undecided; any available correction belonged to the governing English-law remedies. (¶¶ 16, 17)
- The petitions were dismissed with aggregate exemplary costs of Rs 20 lakh payable within six weeks. In the peculiar circumstances, the High Court Registrar was directed to encash the execution deposits and remit them with accrued interest in US dollars after RBI permission within eight weeks, irrespective of orders of other Indian courts or tribunals, and report compliance within two further weeks. (¶¶ 18, 19)
Result
Special leave petitions dismissed with aggregate costs of Rs 20 lakh and specific directions to release the execution deposits and accrued interest to the award holder.