Indian Kanoon - Search engine for Indian Law

6. The appellant claims that the respondent no.2 had attempted to exclude the appellant from the Firm, and thereby, his share in the Property, by fabricating and manipulating the Retirement Deed dated 19.01.2010 as well as Form V, that is, the notice of change in the constitution of the Firm filed with the Registrar of Firms.

7. The appellant, therefore, issued a notice dated 03.07.2012 under Section 21 of the A&C Act, inter alia, to respondent no.2 and 3, seeking reference of disputes qua his retirement from the respondent no.1 Firm to arbitration. The appellant also filed a petition under Section 9 of the A&C Act, being O.M.P. 1182/2012, titled Brajendra Khandelwal v. M/S Rajindra Iron Mart & Ors., seeking an order restraining the other parties from dealing with, selling, transferring, or in any manner encumbering the Property, by contending that the Firm‟s reconstitution by a Partnership Deed dated 10.03.2011, was "illegal, invalid, sham and unfair". The appellant claimed that the respondent no.2 had obtained certain signed blank papers from him, which had been mis-utilised and illegally used to reflect his retirement from the Firm and its reconstitution.

21. He further submits that the learned Arbitrator has completely ignored that neither the Retirement Deed nor the notice of retirement were on blank papers. The Retirement Deed was printed on the stamp papers, which were purchased on 19.01.2010. Moreover, the notice of retirement to the Registrar was in the format of a pre-printed Form-A, which could not have been a blank paper. Therefore, the plea taken by the appellant that he was made to sign some blank papers was completely false, and contrary to the evidence on record.

xxxxx

40. However, a visual examination of the Retirement Deed indicates that it was not signed on a blank stamp paper. The Arbitral Tribunal had also not returned any finding that the blank stamp papers were signed by BK, which were subsequently misused by printing the Retirement Deed.

47. First of all, the Arbitral Tribunal has failed to return a finding with regard to the case set up by BK. As noticed above, it was his case that he had affixed his signatures on the blank papers and the said papers were manipulated/fabricated to reflect his retirement. Thus, the principal question to be addressed by the Arbitral Tribunal was whether the Retirement Deed - which is printed on a stamp paper dated 19.01.2010 (as is reflected on the rear side of the stamp paper) - was signed in blank and printed thereafter. There is no finding of the Arbitral Tribunal accepting BK‟s case that he had signed a blank paper and the Retirement Deed had been printed thereafter. There is no finding whether the Retirement Deed was manipulated or fabricated as alleged by BK.