A Division Bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, comprising Chief Justice Mohammad Rafiq and Justice Vijay Kumar Shukla, has said in a recent order that commercial matters involving Arbitration disputes can only be heard by commercial court of the status of district judge or additional district Judge.
They said that a civil judge would not be the competent authority to entertain cases under Sections 9,14, 314, 34 & 36 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996.
The Bench held that the language employed in the definition clause of “Court” in Section 2(1)(c) of the Arbitration Act shows that the Legislature intended to confer power in respect of disputes involving arbitration on the highest judicial court of the district. This, the court opined, was done to minimise the supervisory role of courts in the arbitral process and, therefore, purposely excluded any civil court of a grade inferior to such Principal Civil Court, or any Court of Small Causes.