Arbitrator May Use Own Knowledge And Expertise To Arrive At Conclusion But Must Allow Parties To Present Their Case: Madras HC

While granting relief to the Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL), the Madras High Court has noted that while an arbitral tribunal, which consists of an expert Arbitrator in the field, is at liberty to apply its own knowledge and understanding to arrive at a conclusion, it should always allow the parties involved to present their case. The bench of Acting Chief Justice T Raja and Justice Bharatha Chakravarthy was adjudicating appeals filed by Transtonnelstroy-Afcons who had entered into an agreement with CMRL for carrying out the construction of the Chennai metro. Arbitral tribunal (Arbitrator) had ruled in favour of the appellants The arbitral tribunal (Arbitrator) had ruled in favour of the appellants and performed its own analysis to reach a decision regarding an extension of time for completing the project when the appellant challenged the single judge’s order to set it aside. The arbitral tribunal had requested unmarked records after reserving the issues for orders, and the bench observed that it had not disclosed to either party the reason for gathering the records. Simply emailing both parties to request the records would not constitute giving them a chance if they were unaware of the records’ intended use. Strong argument for the Court to overturn the arbitral decision As a result, after determining the necessity of the aforementioned documents, simply requesting the documents without explaining why, after reserving the matter for orders and following their internal deliberation, essentially equates to taking the materials without the parties’ knowledge. The emails from both […]