Arbitration and Requirements of Law

Arbitration and Requirements of Law

It was held in TVC Sky Shop Ltd v. Sahara Airlines Ltd [2010] GCtR 6472 (Delhi) that "the only requirement of Section 7(3) of Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 is of the arbitration agreement being in writing. Section 7 (4) & (5) of the Act provide that an arbitration agreement is in writing even if it is in exchange of letters, telex, telegrams and other means of telecommunication which provide a record to the agreement and even if it is contained in a document to which reference is made in writing and the reference is such as to make that arbitration clause part of the contract." 

In the present case, it is the respondent which forwarded the duly signed agreement in writing containing an arbitration clause to the petitioner, showing its willingness for arbitration of disputes if any arising between the parties. The respondent thereafter accepted the goods/services from the petitioner. Such acceptance is also in writing through invoices. There is nothing in the said invoices to indicate that the respondent had agreed to waive the provision for arbitration contained in the document forwarded by the respondent itself to the petitioner. In the opinion of this Court from such conduct of the parties, an arbitration agreement came into existence between the parties. The printed clause in the invoices of the same being subject to Mumbai jurisdiction is not found to be inconsistent to the arbitration agreement between the parties.