Calcutta High Court (Appellete Side)
Iifl Securities Limited vs Pramod Kumar Upadhaya on 24 January, 2020
Author: Sanjib Banerjee
Bench: Sanjib Banerjee
1
02
24.01.2020
Ct. No. 37
ssd
FMAT 89 of 2020
with
CAN 827 of 2020
IIFL Securities Limited
Vs.
Pramod Kumar Upadhaya
Mr. Ratnanko Banerji
Mr. Debnath Ghosh
Ms. Manali Bose
Mr. Ashis Kumar Mukherjee
Mr. S.Prasad
...for the appellant.
Mr. Pramod Kumar Upadhaya
... respondent ( in person).
The appeal is directed against an order of December 23, 2019 dismissing a challenge under Section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 to an arbitral award of December 10, 2018. The award was rendered by an arbitral tribunal appointed under the bye-laws, rules and regulations of the National Stock Exchange India Limited.
The respondent herein was a client of the appellant and an account was maintained by such client with the appellant for transactions in foreign currencies. The matter pertains to the respondent having apparently instructed the appellant 2 not to carry out any further transaction on his behalf on or about February 9, 2018 and the appellant continuing such transactions thereafter. The complaint was made sometime on or about March 27, 2018.
There is no dispute that a What's App message was sent by the respondent to the appellant or to an employee of the appellant who dealt with the respondent on behalf of the appellant, clearly instructing the appellant not to carry out any further transactions on behalf of the respondent. There is no dispute that such "hold" instruction was received by the appellant from the respondent. However, on the basis of a telephonic conversation held between an employee of the appellant and the respondent on or about February 14, 2018, the appellant sought to demonstrate that the "hold" instruction earlier issued by the respondent had been withdrawn. The appellant says that contract notes for transactions entered into by the appellant on behalf of the respondent subsequent to the "hold" instruction being issued were forwarded to the respondent and the respondent chose to complain only a month later.
The appellant has placed pages 579 to 583 of the appeal papers which is the transcription of the telephonic conversations between the appellant's employee and the 3 respondent during the period February 14, 2018 to February 16, 2018. The appellant points out that the concerned dealer clearly indicated to the respondent that an investment in US currency had been made by the appellant on behalf of the respondent and such dollars were purchased at Rs.63.9712 per unit and, subsequently, sold at Rs.64 per unit for a gain to the respondent. The appellant asserts that it would be evident from the drift of the conversations that the respondent was pleased with the transaction and, implicit in the respondent not questioning why such transaction was undertaken, was the respondent's instruction to disregard the "hold" command that had been issued earlier. The appellant says that other transactions were also referred to in course of the conversations and on no occasion did the respondent herein charge the appellant's concerned employee that such employee had transgressed his limits or acted in derogation of the respondent's instructions.
According to the appellant, the arbitral tribunal completely misread the purport of the conversations between the parties subsequent to the "hold" instruction being issued by the respondent. The appellant claims that no reasonable person could have inferred from the subsequent 4 conversations between the parties that the "hold" instruction issued on or about February 9, 2018 was still in place.
For a start, it is not the business of a court exercising authority under Section 34 of the Act of 1996 to rummage through the papers that were carried before the arbitrators or go through the oral evidence to discover whether the arbitral tribunal had committed a mistake. The general supervision exercised by a court is primarily limited to errors of jurisdiction being corrected, rather than errors within jurisdiction being looked into.
However, since the "hold" instruction issued by the respondent on February 9, 2018 and the subsequent conversations held between the appellant's employee and the respondent covered the entire gamut of the matter, the appellant was afforded the opportunity to placing the same. There is nothing from the subsequent conversation that amounts to the respondent having overridden the "hold" instruction that had earlier been issued. No reasonable person could have inferred from the subsequent conversation alluded to by the appellant that the "hold" instruction of February 9, 2018 was withdrawn, notwithstanding the amusement and pleasure with which the respondent greeted the news about the gain that he had made on the dollars that 5 were purchased for him at a lower price and sold at a higher price.
Since the arbitral tribunal came to an appropriate conclusion based on the evidence that was before such tribunal, the impugned award does not call for any interference. The court of the first instance appropriately exercised its authority to not interfere in the nitty gritties or to embark on an exercise to discover which 'i' had not been dotted or which 't' had not been crossed in the arbitral award. There is no merit in the appeal. FMAT 89 of 2020 and CAN 827 of 2020 are dismissed.
There will be no order as to costs.
(Sanjib Banerjee, J.) (Kausik Chanda, J.)