Whether Non-Filing Of 'Statement Of Truth' Along With A Petition U/S 34 Of A&C Act Makes The Filing Non-Est? Delhi High Court Refers Question To Larger Bench For Clarification In View Of Conflicting Views

Facts

The impugned award was passed on 24.07.2023. Aggrieved by the award, the petitioner challenged it under Section 34 on 27.10.2023, however, the original petition was not accompanied by a Statement of Truth. This defect was cured in the subsequent filing done on 06.12.2023.

Submissions by the Parties

The respondent objected to the maintainability of the petition on the following grounds:

• The original petition was unaccompanied by the statement of truth which makes it a non-est filing.
• Since, the original filing was a non-est filing, the date of the subsequent filing would be considered for the purpose of limitation, however, this was done after the expiry of 120 days provided under Section 34(3) of the A&C Act.

The petitioner made the following counter-arguments:

• Non-filing of statement of truth is only a procedural defect and the effective date of filing would be the date of the original filing only.

Analysis by the Court

The Court observed that there are diverging views taken by two Division Benches of the High Court. It observed that the Division Bench in ONGC v. Sai Rama Engineering 2023 SCC OnLine Del 63 has held that non-filing of Statement of Truth is only a procedural defect which would not make the petition non-est. However, another Division Bench in a subsequent judgment in ONGV v. Planetcast Technologies 2023 SCC OnLine Del 8490 has held otherwise.

The Court noted that the question 'Whether non-filing of statement of truth with a Challenge Petition would make the filing non-est' arises for consideration in several cases and there is a need for authoritative clarification on this point in view of the conflicting views taken by the Division Benches.

Accordingly, the Court directed the matter to be placed before a bench of two or more judges and directed the registry to place it before the Acting Chief Justice for reference to an appropriate bench.

Case Title: BBNL v. Sterlite Technologies Ltd

Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (Del) 401

Date: 21.03.2024

Counsel for the Petitioner: Mr. Jayant Mehta, Sr. Advocate with Mr. Deepayan Mandal, Mr. Naman Varma, Mr. Mridul Bansal, Advocates

Counsel for the Respondent: Mr. A.K. Thakur, Mr. Rishi Raj, Mr. Sujeet Kumar, Advocates

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