Sanjay Habitats LLP vs Shree Vijay C-D Wing Co-Operative Housing Society Limited And Ors

Somasekhar Sundaresan, J

Context and Factual Background:

Commercial Arbitration Petition No. 7542 of 2024 is a Petition filed under Section 9 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 ("the Act"), seeking intervention of the Court in connection with the carrying out redevelopment activity, pursuant to a Development Agreement dated November 11, 2022, between the Petitioner, Sanjay Habitats LLP ("Developer") and Respondent No.1, Shree Vijay C-D Wing Co-Operative Housing Society Limited ("Society").

Various individual members of the Society had been arrayed as Respondent Nos. 2 to 21, seeking intervention of the Court for directing them to vacate their premises in connection with the redevelopment contemplated under the aforesaid Agreement.

The Petition is a standard proceedings that has now become a regular feature in this Court, with dissenting members being asked to give way to the wider interests of the larger collective, invoking the jurisdiction under Section 9 despite there being no immediate dispute between the parties to the arbitration agreement.

This matter has been heard from time to time last year. Over time, all the members had vacated their premises. The last member, namely Respondent No. 4 in the Section 9 Petition, Ms. Ami S. Shah, had certain grievances about the conduct of the Developer and the Society. The Petition had filed Contempt Petition (L) No. 26821 of 2024 alleging that certain Respondents had committed contempt of Court in the wilful defiance of the directions passed by this Court.

Perjury Petition (L) No. 17564 of 2024 is filed by Ms. Shah, praying that the orders directing the forceful vacation of members of the Society had been obtained by fraud and ought to be recalled. The said Petition also seeks intervention in the form of initiating appropriate proceedings for perjury and the registration of a First Information Report against the Respondents.

On June 17, 2025, it was recorded that Ms. Shah had been given time until July 10, 2025 to file a further affidavit, for which she had sought liberty, purely to enable her to bring on record developments, which she had insisted were necessary to be brought to the attention of the Court. As of June 17, 2025, such affidavit had not been filed. Thereafter, a praecipe had been filed by another member, seeking to draw the Court's attention to various facets of the matter. Mr. Amogh Singh, who had been appointed as Amicus Curiae to hear the various contentions of the parties to assist the Court, also addressed the Court in terms of where things stand in the matter.

One Mr. Kumar Vyas, along with his siblings, who were Respondent Nos. 17, 18 and 19 in the Section 9 Petition, had entered into Consent Terms in the course of hearing of an Appeal before a Learned Division Bench of this Court.

It had been stated by this Court that the file would be examined offline and appropriate orders would be passed. This was necessary particularly taking into account the fact that the building had been demolished pursuant to various parties being vacated during the pendency of the Section 9 Petition and pursuant to orders and arrangements made by Court from time to time.

There has been a significant efflux of time since then. Nothing survives in the Section 9 Petition. Having considered the matter and reviewed the file, with particular regard to the fact that the jurisdiction in question is under Section 9 of the Act, which is a temporary jurisdiction meant to preserve and protect the subject matter of the arbitration, and since detailed directions had already been passed to secure the best interests of those who had been asked to vacate, and considering that all such activity has indeed been carried out and completed, on a review of the file, it is clear to me that the Section 9 Petition deserves to be disposed of finally, with a direction that the Developer and the Society shall be bound to ensure that pari passu treatment is given to all members of the Society regardless of past rancour in the conduct of these proceedings, in full and formal compliance with the letter and spirit of the Development Agreement.

In these circumstances, I am of the view that the Contempt Petition is not worth the judicial time necessary to conduct it, and calls for being disposed of. As regards the Perjury Petition, considering that the primary prayer is to recall the orders vacating the members of the Society, in my view, the same also deserves to be disposed of, without prejudice to any appropriate proceedings being initiated and pursued in relation to perjury, if a case is made out in this regard.

With the aforesaid observations, all the captioned Petitions, namely, the Section 9 Petition, the Perjury Petition, and the Contempt Petition are disposed of without any further directions or orders, with liberty as above.

Needless to say, nothing in this order shall come in the way of enforcement of any accrued rights available to any party in law. The disposal of these Petitions is premised on nothing worthy of judicial intervention surviving in them at this stage for them to be kept pending. Should any independent cause of action be available in law to any of the parties, such party shall have liberty to take up such proceedings as advised, in accordance with law.

All actions required to be taken pursuant to this order shall be taken upon receipt of a downloaded copy as available on this Court's website.