The Delhi High Court recently invoked English novelist Charles Dickens to underscore the importance of timeliness under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 [NHPC Ltd v V3S Infratech Ltd]. .Justice Anish Dayal refused to condone the delay of 21 days in re-filing of the petition as it was not filed within the statutory period of limitation of 120 days under Section 34(3) of the Act.He then referred to a remark by a character in David Copperfield, written by Dickens. “Petitioner, as other parties, may find this remark by a character in David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, apposite and instructive: ‘My advice is, never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time’,” the Court said. .The Court noted that the petition was filed for setting aside an arbitral award dated April 23, 2024 and an application under Section 33(1)(a) of the Act was filed for corrections in the award. The corrected award was passed on June 8, 2024 which would be the starting point of limitation. Therefore, the three-month limitation period would expire on September 7, 2024, and the additional 30-day period would expire on October 7..The petitioner NHPC argued that petition was filed on September 6, 2024, within the prescribed period of 90 days.However, the counsel for the opposition (V3S) contended that the filing on September 6 was a non-est filing, as the petition only had 30 pages which was later amplified to 2,000 pages.The counsel added that even on November 12, the filing had numerous defects and the petitioner requested for it be placed before the court, subject to objections. .After considering the case, the Court observed that the initial filing of September 6 was without the award. “The very fact that the filing in September 2024 by the petitioner was not accompanied by the award (nor was this denied by the counsel for the petitioner) concludes the issue as relating to non-est filing in favour of the respondent and against the petitioner,” it said. Justice Dayal also rejected the petitioner’s argument that the court vacations in June 2024 would effectively shift the starting point of limitation from June 8 to July 1. “There is a fundamental flaw in the contention of the petitioner’s counsel regarding the summer vacation Notification. The summer vacation Notification is not intended to extend the ‘starting’ point of the limitation if it falls within the summer vacations, but rather to stop the limitation from ‘running’ during the period, benefitting those whose limitation period might expire during the vacation.”It added that reasons such as counsel not being available during festivities to work on a petition are tantamount to excuses and must be rejected..Advocates SS Ahluwalia, Saniya Zehra, Nakul Sachdeva, Karundeep Singh and Abhinandan Sharma appeared for petitioner NHPC. V3S Infratech was represented through Senior Advocate Sudhir Nandrajog and Advocates Praveen Kumar Singh, Sujit Kumar Singh, Md Ziauddin Ahmad, Abhishek Mehra and Ankita Singh. .[Read Order]
