Vikram Bakshi and Others vs Sonia Khosla and Others

Shiv Narayan Dhingra, J.—This application u/s 340 of the Criminal Procedure Code has been preferred by the applicant/respondent against the non applicant/petitioner for prosecution of non applicants for perjury on the ground that non applicant made following false statement before this Court:

That I am Director of Petitioner No. 2 (i.e. Montreaux Resorts Pvt. Ltd.)

That I have read the accompanying petition u/s 11 of the Arbitration & Conciliation Act and the contents of the same are true to my knowledge and belief.

It is submitted by applicant that the non applicant No. 1 and 2 were neither the director of Montreaux Resorts (P) Ltd (MRL) nor competent to swear the affidavit on behalf of MRL and despite this the above affidavit was filed by the non applicant/petitioner in support of the arbitration application and this Court passed an order for appointment of an Arbitral Tribunal.

While disposing of the application/petition, this Court had taken into account the contentions made by applicant about MRLs directors and observed as under:

As indicated in Clause 29(b) of the agreement between the parties, where the dispute involves multiple parties, whether as claimants or as respondents, the multiple claimants and the multiple respondents are jointly required to nominate an arbitrator each. That has been done. It is also stated in Clause 29(b) of the said agreement that the Khosla family are one party and Mr. Vikram Bakshi and Company are the other party. At this stage, there is a dispute as to whether Vikram Bakashi controls the company along with his group or the respondents with their group control the said company. These are issues which are left open for the arbitrators to decide in terms of the agreement between the parties and on the basis of the factual position that would be placed before them.

Keeping in view the fact that this Court had taken cognizance of the controversy as to who controls petitioner No. 1 and has left this issue also open to be decided by the arbitral tribunal, I consider that no proceedings u/s 340 of Criminal Procedure Code can be initiated on the basis of affidavit filed by non applicant claiming that the non applicant represented MRL. In case the arbitral tribunal gives a finding that the non applicant/accused could not have represented MRL and a false claim was made to this effect then only any cause of action would be there in favour of applicant to initiate action against the non applicants, if so advised. However, in the garb of making this application u/s 340 of Cr.P.C. applicant cannot ask this Court to decide what has been left to be decided by the arbitral tribunal. It is noteworthy that the applicant is not allowing arbitral tribunal to proceed with the arbitration proceedings and the arbitral tribunal ultimately resigned and made the following observations:

Due to highly obstructive and abrasive conduct of Mr. Deepak Khosla representing Mrs. Sonia Khosla, his wife respondent No. 1 and Mr. R.P. Khosla, his father respondent No. 2 throughout the proceedings, we the three arbitrators have resigned as arbitrators in this matter. Mr. Khosla does not let the matter proceed on merits as he keeps moving one application after another and insists on his applications being heard first. Moreover, his stand as recorded in proceedings on the last date of hearing dated 04.02.2009 is that the arbitral tribunal is not legally constituted. The resignations of each of the arbitrators, hand written and duly signed are annexed hereto.

Considering the fact that it was the applicant who was not allowing the arbitral tribunal to decide the issue and disputes between the parties, I consider that the applicant has no right to prefer the present application. The application is hereby dismissed with costs of Rs. 10,000/-.