ARBP1084-10 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY ORDINARY ORIGINAL CIVIL JURISDICTION ARBITRATION PETITION NO.1084 OF 2010 Mr.Ramchandra Gurunath Joshi .. Petitioner Versus M/s.Motilal Oswal Securities Ltd .. Respondent Mr.Anushar Dawar i/by Legasis Partners for the petitioner. None for the respondent. CORAM : S.C.DHARMADHIKARI, J. DATE : 12th January 2011. P.C.: . This is a petition under section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996. The petitioner has impugned the award which rejected the claim of the petitioner. 2 Essentially, the grounds in the petition raise a factual controversy. The arguments are also in the realm of appreciation of evidence. 3 The Arbitral Tribunal has found, after perusal of the pleadings and documents that, the claim is not proved by the petitioner. The argument was ARBP1084-10 2 that the petitioner holds a D-mat account with the respondent for over three years and also trading account and traded through the sub-broker. It is stated that the respondent was requested to submit the client statement because the petitioner did not receive payments for some shares sold in April/May 2008 and this statement was given on 23rd June 2008. On receiving this statement it was noticed that there were many transactions reflected, running into lakhs of rupees of which the petitioner-applicant had no knowledge nor any prior approval was taken and which resulted in loss to the tune of Rs.19,30,596.53/- both at the Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange. The respondent had sold shares worth Rs.9,902/- from National Stock Exchange without the petitioner-claimants knowledge. Amongst other things it was argued that the petitioner was completely illiterate about computers and has not obtained a digital communication of contract notes. 4 The Tribunal has found that the Member-Client Agreement was executed on 8th April 2004 and it is also signed by the sub-broker through whom the petitioner admitted that he has regularly carried out trade from ARBP1084-10 3 April 2004. No dispute was raised till June 2008 about the validity of the agreement. Further, there were lot of transactions for four years wherein the petitioner accepted payments and also made payments. In such circumstances, the Tribunal concluded that the argument that the petitioner is not familiar with working of computers has no substance. Particularly because the petitioner does not dispute the transactions details of which the respondent was forwarding from April 2004 and received and accepted till June 2008. 5 The claim was clearly, therefore, an afterthought and deserved to be dismissed. 6 Such findings unless demonstrated to be clearly perverse cannot be interfered with in the limited jurisdiction conferred by section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 as this Court is not Court of Appeal. In these circumstances petition is devoid of merits and is dismissed accordingly. No costs. (S.C.DHARMADHIKARI, J)