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The Court: The present application is one for recall of an order dated August 30, 2024 passed by this Court in AP-COM/17/2023, which was an application filed under Section 11 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996.

Learned senior counsel appearing for the petitioner urges three points on which the petitioner assails the said order in the present recall application:

i) That the agreement-in-question did not contain a valid arbitration clause in the eye of law and as such, the reference under Section 11 of the 1996 Act could not have been made in the first place;

It is, thus, contended that in the present case, in the absence of any valid arbitration clause, the reference to arbitration by the order under recall was bad in law and without jurisdiction.

Learned counsel appearing for the respondent herein (the applicant in the Section 11 application) contends that the present application is not maintainable in law and in its present form. It is argued that no recall application lies on the basis of the grounds taken in the present application. At best, the present petitioner might have filed a review application which having not been done, the present application is not maintainable in law.

Learned counsel next argues that while adjudicating an application under Section 11 of the 1996 Act, the limited charter of the Court is to ascertain whether there is a valid arbitration clause. However, a prima facie satisfaction on such count is sufficient.

It is next contended that insofar as the allegation that a reply was given to the Section 21 notice, no proof of service has been annexed to the recall application, thus belying the allegation that any such reply was given and suppressed. It is reiterated that no such reply was received by the applicant in the Section 11 application at any point of time.

Clause 22 is captioned as "Jurisdiction" and provides that "The jurisdiction of the Contract shall be exclusively at Kolkata and under courts of Kolkata."

Learned senior counsel for the petitioner herein has placed much reliance on the said clauses to argue that those do not disclose a valid arbitration clause.

However, before going into the merits of such arguments, the contention as to maintainability of the present application is required to be decided.

The Supreme Court, in Asit Kumar Kar (supra) as well as Budhia Swain and others (supra), has set out the grounds available to a court to recall its order.