Limitation Commences When Award Is Received By Authority Competent To Decide On Challenging It U/S 34 A&C Act: Manipur High Court

A bench of Chief Justice Mr. M. Sundar and Mr. Justice A. Guneshwar Sharma held that “In cases of Government, the award should be received by a person who is in full control of the arbitration proceedings and who is in a position to take a decision about assailing the award under Section 34.”

Background:

The dispute originated from a contract executed between the Manipur PWD and M/s Keystone Infra Pvt. Ltd. for improvement of the Bishnupur–Nungba road. The disputes were referred to arbitration which culminated in an arbitral award in favor of the contractor who was awarded Rs. 96.16 crore and the counter claims of the State were rejected. The State challenged the award under section 34. The petition was dismissed over barred by limitation as it had been filed 12 days beyond the condonable period.

The Appellant submitted that the award was received by the Chief Engineer only on 5th April 2023 under cover of the State's counsel. The Chief Engineer being the competent authority to decide on filing a challenge against the award was the relevant party under section 2(1)(h) of the Act, therefore the limitation period for the purpose of filing the challenge would commence from the date when the award was received by the Engineer.

Per contra, the Respondent submitted that soft copies of the award were emailed on 20 February 2023 to both the parties by the arbitrator, therefore that date should be considered for computing the limitation period under section 31(5).

Findings:

The court observed that the soft copy sent by email did not constitute a valid service under section 31(5) as it was expressly mentioned in the email that a hard copy of the award was being couriered separately. It held that “Law is now settled that Section 31(5) requirement is not merely procedural but a matter of substance.”

Relying on Tecco Trichy Engineers, the court held that “In cases of Government, the award should be received by a person who is in full control of the arbitration proceedings and who is in a position to take a decision about assailing the award under Section 34.”

Further the court quoted from the Supreme Court's judgment in Motilal Agarwala where it was held that “In order to constitute an effective service, a copy of an award, where such party is the Ministry of a particular Department, is to be delivered to a person who has the knowledge and is the best person to understand and appreciate an award and more particularly, to take decision for its challenge.”

Applying the above law to the facts of the present case, the court held that receipt of the award's copy by the Chief Engineer on 5th April 2023 was the effective date for the purposes of calculating the limitation period as the Engineer was the relevant party to decide whether the award should be challenged under section 34.

The court also observed that the three month time period prescribed under section 34(3) cannot be understood as 90 days. It held that “When the period is expressed in months, the same date in the next English calendar month will constitute one month… Therefore, one month may or may not be 30 days depending on the calendar months over which it spreads.”

Accordingly, the present appeal was allowed condoning the delay of 12 days and the impugned order was set aside.

Case Title: The Chief Engineer, Public Works Department (including NH & NEC) Imphal Vs. M/S Keystone Infra Private Limited

Case Number:Arb. A. No. 1 of 2025

Order Date: 08/10/2025

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