Almost a decade ago, the Apex Court held in the case of Booz Allen & Hamilton Inc. Vs. SBI Home Finance Ltd.1, that generally and traditional all disputes relating to rights in personam are arbitrable whereas all disputes relating to rights in rem are to be adjudicated by the courts and public tribunals. Recently, in the case of Deccan Paper Mills Co. Ltd. v. Regency Mahavir Properties & Ors2, the Apex Court, while deciding whether an action for cancellation of written instruments under Section 31 of Specific Relief Act (“SRA”), 1963 is arbitrable or not, re-visited its judgement in Booz Allen’s case in order to consider if a further exception can be carved out to the categories of non-arbitrable cases, laid down therein.
Facts of the Case
● Deccan Paper Mills Co. Ltd. “Deccan” owner of approximately 80,200 sq. meters of land bearing Survey Nos. 96B, 96C and 96D at village Mundhwa, District Pune, decided to develop a portion of the said land i.e. 32,659 sq. meters and for the same Deccan entered into an agreement dated 22.07.2004 with M/s Ashray Premises Pvt. Ltd. “Ashray”. This agreement did not contain any arbitration clause. However, clause 2(m) in the agreement permitted assignment of the right of 1 (2011) 5 SCC 532. 2 Civil Appeal No 5147 of 2016 decided by a larger bench of Hon’ble Justice R F Nariman, Hon’ble Justice Navin Sinha and Hon’ble Justice Indira Banerjee, on 19.08.2020 the developer to any other READ MORE
