Order VII Rule 11 CPC cannot be invoked to reject a Section 9 arbitration application.

M/s Lahoty Buildcon Ltd. filed a composite application under Section 9 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, seeking interim measures based on two agreements dated 9 November 2024 and 20 June 2025, each containing an arbitration clause.

Marudhara Primeinfra objected that the agreements concerned separate projects and obligations and could not be combined in one application. It sought rejection of the Section 9 application under Order VII Rule 11 CPC. The Commercial Court dismissed that application as not maintainable but kept the substantive objection to the composite application open for consideration at the final hearing.

Marudhara challenged that order under Article 227; Lahoty separately sought expeditious determination of the pending Section 9 application.

Whether Order VII Rule 11 CPC could be invoked to reject, at the threshold, an application under Section 9 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, on the ground that it combined claims arising from two allegedly independent agreements.

Whether the Commercial Court’s decision to reserve the objection to the composite application for consideration at the final hearing disclosed a jurisdictional error warranting interference under Article 227.

Whether the pending Section 9 application should be directed to be decided expeditiously.

Section 9 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 empowers a court to grant interim measures in aid of arbitration; an application under that provision is not a suit but an interlocutory proceeding intended to protect the arbitral process (Firm Ashok Traders v. Gurumukh Das Saluja, (2004) 3 SCC 155).

Although procedural principles of the CPC may be relevant, its technicalities should not obstruct the exercise of Section 9 jurisdiction (Essar House Pvt. Ltd. v. Arcellor Mittal Nippon Steel India Ltd., (2022) 20 SCC 178).

Order VII Rule 11 CPC specifically provides for rejection of a plaint and, absent a statutory basis for its application, does not provide a mechanism to reject a Section 9 application.

Whether disputes under separate agreements can be treated together depends on the agreements, their interrelationship, the disputes, and the interim relief sought; Duro Felguera, S.A. v. Gangavaram Port Ltd., (2017) 9 SCC 729, does not resolve that fact-dependent question at the threshold.

Article 227 supervisory intervention is warranted only for jurisdictional error, manifest perversity, failure to exercise jurisdiction, or comparable grave injustice.

The Court held that a Section 9 application is neither a plaint nor an ordinary civil suit, and therefore Order VII Rule 11 could not be used to compel its rejection at the threshold.

Marudhara’s objection—that two agreements were independent and required separate proceedings—was not a purely legal question apparent on the face of the application: deciding it could require examination of the agreements, their arbitration clauses, the parties’ obligations, the disputes, and the relief claimed.

Because the Commercial Court had preserved that objection for decision on the merits, it had not denied Marudhara an opportunity to raise it, and its procedural decision disclosed no ground for Article 227 intervention.

Given the interim nature of the Section 9 proceeding, the Court also considered an expeditious decision appropriate.

It expressly left open the objection that the two agreements were independent and that the composite application was consequently not maintainable, directing the Commercial Court to decide that objection on its merits and in accordance with law, uninfluenced by the High Court’s ruling on Order VII Rule 11.

The Court disposed of Lahoty’s writ petition by directing the Commercial Court to decide the pending Section 9 application expeditiously, preferably within four months of receiving the judgment.