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2017 (4) TMI 1623 - SC - Indian LawsPower of Court to relegate the parties before the Arbitral Tribunal after having set aside the arbitral award in question and moreso suo moto in absence of any application made in that behalf by the parties to the arbitration proceedings - Section 34 (4) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 - HELD THAT:- On a bare reading of provision of Section 34, it is amply clear that the Court can defer the hearing of the application filed Under Section 34 for setting aside the award on a written request made by a party to the arbitration proceedings to facilitate the Arbitral Tribunal by resuming the arbitral proceedings or to take such other action as in the opinion of Arbitral Tribunal will eliminate the grounds for setting aside the arbitral award. The quintessence for exercising power under this provision is that the arbitral award has not been set aside - No power has been invested by the Parliament in the Court to remand the matter to the Arbitral Tribunal except to adjourn the proceedings for the limited purpose mentioned in Sub-Section 4 of Section 34. In any case, the limited discretion available to the Court Under Section 34(4) can be exercised only upon a written application made in that behalf by a party to the arbitration proceedings. It is crystal clear that the Court cannot exercise this limited power of deferring the proceedings before it suo moto - the limited remedy available Under Section 34(4) is required to be invoked by the party to the arbitral proceedings before the award is set aside by the Court. The Division Bench of the High Court of Karnataka in the case of BHASKAR INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT LIMITED VERSUS. SOUTH WESTERN RAILWAY [2016 (3) TMI 1462 - KARNATAKA HIGH COURT] has expounded that the power of the Court Under Section 34 of the Act is not to remand the matter to the Arbitral Tribunal after setting aside the arbitral award. A priori, it must follow that the Division Bench committed manifest error in issuing direction in the concluding part of the impugned judgment, as reproduced hereinbefore in paragraph No. 7. Such direction could not have been issued in the fact situation of the present case. The impugned direction suffers from the vice of jurisdictional error and thus cannot be sustained. Appeal allowed.
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