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Showing contexts for: processed meat in M/S Reliable Agro Foods & Others vs M/S Al-Nafees Frozen Food Exports ... on 22 August, 2017Matching Fragments
31. The Arbitrator by the award in respect of claim No. 1 has held as under:-
"23. In respect to this claim, the Claimant has contended that the respondents did not provide adequate storage facilities for storing the slaughtered meat produced at the factory of the respondents due to which the Claimant was forced to transfer the meat immediately from the factory of the respondents to the storage facility located at Taloja, Maharashtra. The Claimant has also contended that in the process, they had suffered loss as they could not store the processed meat at the store house of the respondents as agreed upon and were forced to incur additional cost of transportation of the said process made by refrigerated trucks amounting to Rs.17,03,623/-. Additionally, the Claimant incurred storage cost amounting to Rs.1,07,47,087/- as it was forced to transfer the meat to the premises of the Claimant at Taloja.
25. Relevant clauses of the Agreement having bearing on the facts of the present case have already been extracted. A bare perusal of the said clauses would indicate that the Respondents would be responsible for the payment of electricity/water charges, maintenance of the plant and machinery, payment of maintenance staff, storing facility, watchman and supervisors for the maintenance. There is yet another clause namely (m) which also speaks of that the Respondents have the responsibility and obligation of slaughtering and processing of buffalo meat as also for freezing, loading and unloading. It is thus clear and apparent that an obligation and responsibility was undertaken under the Agreement by the Respondents to provide for storage and freezing facility. The buffalo meat, which was slaughtered and processed, can be preserved only for a very short period and therefore, it requires proper storage facility with all benefits including freezing facility. As the Respondents could not provide the storage and freezing facility to the processed meat, although specifically agreeing to provide such facility, the claimant had no other alternative but to take it to its own storage facility, which is located far away, on a day- to-day basis. If, however, the facility of storage and freezing was made available to the Claimant by the Respondents, they could have taken the finished product to the port directly and could have got it exported at their convenience.
26. In any case, having considered the facts, I am of the considered opinion that although transportation of processed meat was not the responsibility of the Respondents but of the Claimant, yet the Claimant was deprived of the opportunity to transport the processed meat at its convenience and only at the time when it was to be exported after using the storage and freezing facilities provided by the Respondents, as per the agreed terms referred above. Therefore, there is violation of the terms of Contract by the Respondents. Although the Claimant would have ultimately transported the finished product for the purpose of export, due to the Respondents not providing adequate storage and freezing facility, the same had to be transported at a speedy frequency in respect of which the Claimant had to use refrigerated trucks, which carried the processed meat frequently to the storage facilities arranged by the Claimant at Taloja in Navi Mumbai, which would not have been the case if the Respondents had provided adequate storage facilities to the Claimant. This is also apparent from the dates provided in the said receipts of the transport services companies that consignments of frozen buffalo meat were transported frequently from the Respondent's factory to Claimant's storage facility in Taloja. Due to such circumstances caused by the Respondents' failure to provide storage, Claimant incurred costs that it had not foreseen while entering into the Agreement with the Respondents. In the light of these observations, it is deemed appropriate to partially allow the Claimant's claimed amount with respect to transportation costs to the extent of 50% of costs incurred by the Claimant, as shown in the receipts. Therefore, an amount of Rs.8,51,812/- is granted to the Claimant in this regard. The said processed and frozen meat was stored in the Claimant's storage facility for which claim is made for payment of an amount of Rs.1,07,47,087/-. With respect to its claim for storage costs, only an unsigned and unverifiable statement has been provided by the Claimant wherein costs of storage of the meat has been provided for the period of 28.08.2015 to 30.09.2016. The Claimant has failed to provide any substantial evidence that would establish that it had incurred the aforesaid quantum of costs with respect to storage and the simple statement provided by it cannot be relied on as reliable and substantial. In these circumstances, the Claimant's claim for the amount of Rs.1,07,47,087/- is partially allowed to the extent of 15% of the claimed amount, which amounts to Rs.16,12,063/-. This amount has been granted considering that the Claimant had to store the processed meat in its storage facility even though it had not envisaged the same while entering the Agreement with the Respondents, and thereby had to forego income that it would have otherwise earned if the said storage facility was used in the Claimant's regular course of business. Therefore, an amount of Rs.16,12,063/- with respect to the Claimant's claim for storage costs is allowed."
32. The Arbitrator has found that though transportation of processed meat was not the responsibility of the petitioners, however, the respondent was deprived of the opportunity to transport the processed meat at its convenience and only, at the time when it was exported after using the storage and freezing facility provided by the petitioners.
33. The Arbitrator has interpreted the terms of the agreement between the parties and drawn the conclusion that the petitioners have not complied with the terms of Contract and provided adequate storage and freezing facility. The arbitrator has found that the respondent was required to transport the meat at the speedy frequency for which the respondent had used the refrigerated trucks which carried the processed meat frequently to the storage facility arranged by the respondent, which would not have been the case if the petitioner had provided adequate storage facility to the respondent. The respondents have had to incur extra expenditure, which would not have been the case, had the petitioners complied with the terms and conditions of the contract.