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Background: The Disputed Contracts

To comprehend the legal intricacies surrounding this case, it is essential to delve into the factual background. The dispute emanated from a notice inviting tender (NIT) issued by the respondent on April 19, 2014. Subsequently, a letter of intent (LOI) was issued on August 21, 2014, and a Work Order followed on November 17, 2014, all in favor of the petitioner.

Eventually, on October 15, 2015, the parties executed the primary agreement under scrutiny. Interestingly, both the LOI and the Work Order featured identical arbitration clauses, yet the final contract, executed in October 2015, did not incorporate such a clause. Worth noting is the fact that the agreement dated October 15, 2015, bore the necessary stamp duty, whereas the previous documents did not.

Contentions Raised by the Parties

Unsurprisingly, the contentious dispute gave rise to divergent viewpoints from the involved parties. The respondent, in an attempt to challenge the maintainability of the petitioner's request for arbitration, put forth the following objections:

• The agreement dated October 15, 2015, was devoid of an arbitration clause, and, additionally, it did not meet the requirements for incorporation by reference, rendering the dispute non-arbitrable.
• The LOI, NIT, and the Work Order, which the petitioner leaned upon for incorporating the arbitration clause, were presented as unstamped documents, thus being deemed inadmissible as evidence.

The petitioner, in response to these objections, countered with the following arguments:

• The primary contract specifically referenced the LOI and Work Order, affirming their status as integral components of the agreement, thereby incorporating the arbitration clause from these antecedent agreements through reference.
• Importantly, the contract was adequately stamped, and under the provisions of proviso (c) to Section 35 of the Indian Stamps Act, when multiple documents play a role in the same transaction, the stamp duty paid on any one of them suffices to render the others admissible as evidence.

Court's In-Depth Analysis

With these contentions and objections in mind, the Court meticulously delved into the legal intricacies. First, the Court addressed the issue surrounding the unstamped NIT, LOI, and Work Order. It astutely observed that the final contract executed on October 15, 2015, was properly stamped, shedding light on the fact that the NIT, LOI, and Work Order were all components of a singular transaction leading to the ultimate contract. The Court, in its wisdom, pronounced that when a single document within the correspondence forming a contract is appropriately stamped, the entire contract is to be regarded as properly stamped. Furthermore, invoking proviso (c) to Section 35 of the Indian Stamps Act, the Court relieved a party from the statutory obligation of stamping each and every letter or document forming part of the correspondence, provided that one of these documents bears the requisite stamp.

The Court then turned its attention to the objection concerning the absence of an arbitration clause within the contract executed on October 15, 2015. It discerned that the contract, in no uncertain terms, made a specific reference to the LOI and Work Order, explicitly designating them as integral constituents of the overarching agreement. Consequently, the Court reasoned that this explicit integration incorporated the arbitration clause from these antecedent agreements by reference. The verdict underscored a fundamental legal principle - that the absence of an arbitration clause within the main agreement loses its materiality when it expressly encompasses another agreement that contains an arbitration clause. This ruling finds firm footing in Section 7(5) of the A&C Act, which facilitates the incorporation of arbitration agreements by reference.

Consequently, the Court, in its final judgment, granted the petitioner's request, appointing Justice (Retd) S. Muralidhar as the sole arbitrator to adjudicate the matter.

Case Title and Date

This pivotal legal ruling was rendered under the case title "Power Mech Projects Limited v. BHEL," case number AP 444 of 2023, and the judgment was delivered on October 17, 2023.