Arbitrator Independence and Law Firm Briefings – Limits of Section 32(3) Categories
Order dated 9.6.2025 of the High Court of Calcutta, OOCJ, Commercial Division, in AP-COM/178/2025 of Damodar Valley Corporation Vs. Aka Logistics Private Limited
In this case, the petitioner sought specific disclosure from the Arbitrator as to whether he was engaged as a counsel or continued to be engaged or has been briefed as a counsel or engaged in any other capacity by the advocate-on-record for the claimant M/s. Choudhury & Co. Advocates.
The Arbitrator has refused to disclose any further information. Moreover, the Arbitrator did not permit additional facts to be introduced in the sur-rejoinder of the petitioner.
In this context, the application under Sections 14(2) and 15 of the AA for termination of mandate of Arbitrator was filed.
Categories 3 and 4 of VIIth Schedule were relied on for termination of the mandate.
“Arbitrator’s relationship with the parties or counsel 3. The arbitrator currently represents the lawyer or law firm acting as counsel for one of the parties. 4. The arbitrator is a lawyer in the same law firm which is representing one of the parties.”
In that context, it was HELD that the said category cannot be stretched to cover a situation where a counsel / advocate who had been engaged by a particular law firm, could not act as an Arbitrator in a dispute arising between two independent parties, one of whom has engaged the same law firm to act as its solicitor / advocate-on-record.
Thus, the Arbitrator may have been engaged by the law firm either as counsel or as an advocate in other litigations in which the parties in the present arbitral proceedings were not involved. A law firm briefing a counsel or an advocate in unrelated matters, stands in a different footing. This is a professional engagement.
Therefore, a counsel / advocate, having accepted briefs from a law firm for some other client / litigant, cannot be per se be said to be ineligible or disqualified to act as an arbitrator and adjudicate disputes between the parties who were never represented by the Arbitrator in a court of law and who were not personally known him, even if the lawyer / law firm representing a party may have briefed Arbitrator, in his capacity as Advocate in other matters.
