Case: Mgmt.Commt.,Montfort Sr.Secondary School Vs. Vijay Kumar

2. Factual position is almost undisputed and it is unnecessary to set out the details. In a nutshell the same is as follows:Managing Committee of an un-aided minority institution is the appellant. The respondent No.1- Vijay Kumar (hereinafter referred to as the employee) was working as an Assistant Teacher in the school known as Montfort Senior Secondary School (hereinafter referred to as the School). Disciplinary action was taken against him and by order dated 4.5.2000 the Managing Committee terminated his services. Against the order of termination, an appeal was preferred before the Tribunal under Section 8(3) of the Act. The present appellant filed an application under Section 8(1) of the Arbitration Act for reference to an arbitrator. The Tribunal dismissed the application by its order dated 7.6.2001. The same was challenged in a writ petition filed before the Delhi High Court and a learned Single Judge by the impugned judgment upheld the view of the Tribunal and dismissed the writ petition.

Court's reasoning:
13. According to learned counsel for the appellant though there may be two remedies available to the dismissed employee, that is, one the appeal and the other before the arbitrator, his stand was that when one of the parties i.e. the employer wants a particular forum for adjudication there cannot be a compulsion for him to go before the forum chosen by the other party.This argument in our view is clearly without substance. Even if there are plural or multiple remedies available, the principle of dominus litis has clear application15. A question has been raised as to whether the Tribunal is a judicial authority and/or whether it exercises judicial power in the background of sub-Section (1) of Section 8 of the Arbitration Act. The expression Judicial Authority has not been defined under the said Act. The Tribunal is presided by a judicial officer of equal rank of the District Judge. The expenditure incurred on the Tribunal is defrayed from the Consolidated Funds of India. It is vested with the power to regulate its own proceedings and is vested with same powers as are vested in a Court of Law under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (in short the CPC). One important factor is that the Tribunal has a power to stay the operation of the order appealed against23. As noted by this Court in Bank of India v. Lekhimoni Das and Ors. (2000 (3) SCC 640 ), as a general principle where two remedies are available under law, one of them should not be taken as operating in derogation of the other24. In Canara Bank v. Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd. (1995 (3) JT SC 42) this Court held that the Company Law Board was a Court while exercising the functions of the Court. No serious challenge is raised by learned counsel for the appellant to the proposition that the Tribunal is a judicial authority within the meaning of the Arbitration Act25. While accepting the stand of the appellant in a given case the provisions of Section 8(3) of the Act could be rendered nugatory by requiring the Tribunal to refer the matter to an arbitrator