M/S SAMRAT PRESS ....... Respondent Through: Mr Shiv Khorana, Advocate. CORAM : HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE RAJIV SAHAI ENDLAW 1. Whether reporters of Local papers may be allowed to see the judgment? No 2. To be referred to the reporter or not? No 3. Whether the judgment should be reported No in the Digest? RAJIV SAHAI ENDLAW, J. 1. Objections under Section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 have been preferred by the petitioner Union of India to the award dated 27th June, 2002 as corrected on 10th October, 2002 of Shri B.L. Nishad, Joint Secretary and Legal Advisor, Ministry of Law, Justice and Company Affairs acting as the sole arbitrator. 2. The respondent was awarded the contract for one year from 9 th May, 1993 for printing of Sainik Samachar Weekly Magazine. The said contract was extended for one year on 23rd November, 1994 and thereafter on 31st March, 1995 till 31st May, 1996. Disputes and differences having arisen between the parties, the respondent OMP.No.367/2002 Page No. 1 of 11 invoked the arbitration clause and Mr. B.L. Nishad aforesaid was appointed as the sole arbitrator by the competent authority in the Department of Legal Affairs vide order dated 21st September, 2001 and formal order for his appointment as sole arbitrator was issued by the Secretary to the Government of India vide letter darted 3rd October, 2001. 3. The respondent/claimant preferred claims under ten heads out of which claim No.1 has been allowed, claim No.2 of interest has been allowed at a rate lower than claimed by the respondent, claims No.3 and 7 have been partly allowed. Claims No. 4 to 6 and 8 to 10 of the respondent were dismissed by the arbitrator. The respondent has not preferred any objection against such dismissal and the dismissal thereof has attained finality. The petitioner had also made a counter claim for costs of proceedings which has also been dismissed by the arbitrator and no objections have been preferred by the petitioner with respect to the same and that has also attained finality. 4. The petitioner has preferred objections against the claims allowed and has also raised objections (i) that as per the agreement, the arbitration was to be of the Director of Public Relations, Ministry of Defence and the arbitration proceedings are thus vitiated; (ii) that the award on the preliminary issues raised by the petitioner before the arbitrator is without any reason whatsoever. OMP.No.367/2002 Page No. 2 of 11 5. The objection that the arbitration proceedings are vitiated or the award liable to be set aside for the reason of the arbitrator being not as per the agreement between the parties is now no longer res integra. The Division Bench of this Court in S.N. Malhotra & Sons v Airport Authority of India (2008) IV AD (Delhi) 424 has held that where the objection to the jurisdiction of the arbitrator as contained in Section 16 is not raised before the arbitrator, a party is not permitted to raise the same for the first time under Section 34. In the present case no such objection was raised before the arbitrator and it is now not permissible for the petitioner to raise the ground of the arbitral tribunal being not in accordance with the agreement. 6. Even otherwise I find that the respondent applied to the petitioner for the appointment of the arbitrator. It was open to the petitioner to, at that time, appoint the Director, Public Relation as the arbitrator. The petitioner did not do so and appointed its Joint Secretary aforesaid as the arbitrator. The respondent made a claim before the said arbitrator and the petitioner filed the reply and participated in the arbitration proceedings without in any way disputing the existence of the agreement for arbitration before that forum. The respondent made the statement of claim before the arbitrator and the petitioner by not controverting the jurisdiction of arbitrator before whom claim was made, agreed to arbitration before him, within the meaning of Section 7 of the Act. This objection of the petitioner has no merit and is rejected. 7. The second objection is that the arbitrator did not record the reasons for decision on the preliminary objectio