Q: I was appointed the chief accountant of a private limited company under a written contract of employment initially for a period of three years. The contract provided that if any dispute arose between the company and me in relation to my employment, then under such circumstances the matter would be referred to an arbitrator to be appointed by the company and his award would be final.
The arbitration was to be governed by the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996. Things were running smoothly, when all of a sudden my service was arbitrarily terminated after one year without payment of any compensation for premature termination.
I claimed compensation from the company for wrongful dismissal and upon the company?s failure to pay the same I demanded arbitration. Taking heed of my demand, the company finally appointed its advocate as the arbitrator, who, after holding several meetings, passed an award about a month ago, rejecting my claim.
I feel that the arbitrator was biased against me because he was the company?s advocate. In the given situation, can I challenge the award on the ground of bias on the part of the arbitrator or any other ground? What is the remedy in law? I will be grateful if could help me in my dileema.
Name Withheld
A: In law, there is no bar to the company appointing its advocate as the arbitrator and no necessary inference can be drawn that since the arbitrator was the company?s advocate, he was biased against you.
However, if you felt that the arbitrator was biased, you should have applied before him challenging his appointment on the ground of bias as per Section 13 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996.
If you have done so, it would be difficult to successfully challenge the award before the court on the ground of bias of the arbitrator. The grounds for challenging an arbitral award are enumerated in Section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 which are very limited.
However, if you can establish any one or more of such grounds, you may apply to the appropriate court under Section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 for setting aside the arbitral award. Such an application has to be made within three months from the date on which you received a copy of the arbitral award.
However, the court may extend such time by 30 days if it satisfied that you were prevented by sufficient cause from applying within the said period of three months.
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