Non-issuance of Section 21 notice is not a jurisdictional fatality if the dispute remains otherwise arbitrable.

The petitioner and Respondent No. 2 were partners in M/s Jason Enterprises under a 2004 deed

Disputes arose in 2010, leading to a notice of dissolution and an initial arbitral award dated 18.11.2014

That award was set aside by the High Court on 23.03.2017 because the tribunal had wrongly dismissed claims based on the non-registration of the firm; the Court granted liberty to initiate fresh arbitration

Consequently, the DIAC appointed a sole arbitrator on 04.01.2018

The petitioner filed an application under Section 16 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 ("1996 Act"), challenging the tribunal's jurisdiction on the ground that no fresh notice under Section 21 of the 1996 Act was served

The Arbitrator dismissed this application on 11.04.2026, noting it was a repetitive attempt to delay proceedings at the final argument stage

The petitioner challenged this interlocutory order via a writ petition under Article 227

1. Whether the non-issuance of a fresh notice under Section 21 of the 1996 Act, following the setting aside of a previous award with liberty to restart, renders the subsequent arbitral proceedings void ab initio?

2. Whether the High Court should exercise its supervisory jurisdiction under Article 227 of the Constitution to interfere with an interlocutory order passed by an Arbitral Tribunal?

The court applied Section 21 of the 1996 Act regarding the commencement of arbitral proceedings

Section 16 regarding the tribunal's competence to rule on its jurisdiction

It relied on Bhagheeratha Engineering Ltd. v. State of Kerala, which clarifies that a Section 21 notice is procedural for determining limitation rather than a mandatory jurisdictional prerequisite

Regarding judicial intervention, the court followed S.B.P. Co. v. Patel Engineering Ltd., which mandates minimal interference in ongoing arbitrations

The court followed Surender Kumar Singhal v. Arun Kumar Bhalotia, which restricts Article 227 intervention to "exceptional circumstances" where orders are patently perverse or lack inherent jurisdiction

The Court reasoned that Section 21 is a statutory mechanism to ascertain the date of initiation for reckoning limitation and does not condition the existence of the Tribunal's jurisdiction

Since the dispute was demonstrably arbitrable and the petitioner had already participated in the proceedings without raising this objection at the earliest instance, the absence of a fresh notice was not fatal

Furthermore, the Court observed that the petitioner sought to challenge an interlocutory order at the stage of final arguments, which contradicts the legislative intent of the 1996 Act to minimize judicial bottlenecks

The Court found no "exceptional circumstances" or "patent perversity" in the Arbitrator’s decision to dismiss the repetitive Section 16 application, noting that the petitioner has an adequate remedy under Section 34 to challenge any "in-between" orders once the final award is passed

The Court clarified that the petitioner retains the liberty to raise these contentions in a future challenge under Section 34 of the 1996 Act after the final award is pronounced