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Showing contexts for: sublet of contract in M.L. Dalmiya & Co. Ltd. vs International Airport Authority Of ... on 7 October, 1994Matching Fragments
(57) The learned Umpire has, from the evidence and particularly documentary evidence, has come to the conclusion that main reason for terminating the contract of M.L.D. was that the objector was apprehensive that Government of Maldives may not cancel the main contract.on the sole ground that in breach of the terms of the contract, the objector had not taken any prior approval of Government of Maldives for subletting the contract to M.L.D. (58) A back to back contract was awarded to M.L.D. and entire work was to be executed by M.L.D. and the M.L.D. was to receive 93.11% of the total payment to be received under the contract from the Government of Maldives and the objector would have been entitled to only 6.89% of the payments as its cut back. In the documents instead of showing that M.L.D as a sub-contractor, it was shown that M.L.D. was a construction associate. If we peruse the terms of the contract, it is evident that M.L.D. was not merely a construction associate but was a subletting of the main contract. The contract entered into between the objector and the Government of Maldives clearly stipulated that the objector would not be entitled to sublet the contract without previous consent of the Government of Maldives. M.L.D. had started the work at the spot from April 1978 onwards and the Resident Engineer of the Germen firm of consultants employed by the Government of Maldives had not raised any objection to the contract being executed by M.L.D. till September 1978; It so happened that unfortunately the relations between the Resident Engineer and the Project Director of the objector became strained and number of letters such as Ex.R-244, R-248, R-266 and R-268 were referred before the Umpire.
59. Learned counsel for M.L.D. has referred to various documents appearing in the arbitration file which had indicated that the Resident Engineer had become very much annoyed with the Project Director of the objector on very petty matters regarding providing of some facilities stipulated by the contract to the Resident Engineer. I need not refer to the details of said facilities which have been referred by learned counsel for the petitioner which indicate that a panic button had been struck in the minds of the officers of the objector indicating that the contract is likely to be cancelled on the ground that objector had sublet the contract to M.L.D. and efforts were made to show in the invoices for purchasing the machinery and other material that those are not in name of M.L.D. At any rate, from the documentary evidence and the other material discussed by the Umpire in paras 17 to 19 and thereafter in paras 22 to 28 of the award indicate that the Umpire had thoroughly considered all the submissions and the evidence and had not ignored any evidence or documents and had not misread any documents to come to the conclusion that contract of the M.L.D. was rescinded by the objector unjustifiably and only under the apprehension that the main contract may not be cancelled by the Government of Maldives on the ground that objector had sublet the contract to M.L.D. without prior permission.
60. Learned counsel for the objector has argued that the Umpire had misconstrued the documents to reach the conclusion that the visit of the representative of the objector to Germany for having consultation with the architects was to somehow whittle down the objection being raised by the Resident Engineer regarding the subletting of the contract. He has urged that that visit was not confined for this purpose only and was meant to sort out the passing of the first bill. It may be so but it cannot be indeed disputed that the said visit had one of its object to sort out this matter of subletting of the contract.