Non-Nullity Objections To Arbitral Award belong in a petition under Section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, and not in an application under Section 47 of the Code of Civil Procedure during execution, the Madhya Pradesh High Court has held; the objector keeps his remedy, as the time spent on the wrong route is excluded from limitation.
Indore: Anyone who wishes to resist an arbitral award on grounds other than nullity has to file a petition under Section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, and cannot fall back on Section 47 of the Code of Civil Procedure when the award is being executed, the Madhya Pradesh High Court at Indore has held. The petitioner was nevertheless allowed to file his Section 34 objections, with the time spent on the Section 47 route excluded from limitation [Yogesh v. Porwal Feb Tax through Owner/Authorised Representative and Others].
Justice Vinay Saraf disposed of a civil revision petition on October 12, 2026. It challenged an order dated September 18, 2026 of the II District Judge, Indore, in Arbitration Execution No. 1069/2023, by which the executing court had rejected the petitioner’s application under Section 47 read with Section 151 CPC seeking dismissal of the execution petition.
Nullity alone can be raised in execution
A plea of nullity can be raised under Section 47 CPC, the Court accepted, but only within a narrow compass. The petitioner had not questioned the inherent jurisdiction of the arbitral tribunal. His objections concerned who the proprietor of the judgment-debtor firm was and the alleged non-service of notice, and both, the Court said, could have been raised under Section 34. It held:
“The position of law is very clear that except the objection of nullity, all other objections are required to be raised” under Section 34.
A firm, a proprietor and an award passed in his absence
On June 16, 2023 the Arbitration Board of the Shrimant Maharaja Tukojirao Cloth Market Merchant Association passed an award directing recovery of money from M/s Mangal Creation, shown in the proceedings as a firm run by the petitioner, Yogesh, as proprietor. By his account, he learnt of the arbitration only when an attachment warrant was sought to be executed. He maintained that he was not the proprietor of the firm, had bought no material from the award-holder and owed nothing, and relied on the firm’s shop establishment registration certificate.
He also said that no notice of the arbitral proceedings was served on him and that it was published in a newspaper without adequate circulation in Indore, which resulted in an ex parte award.
The executing court dismissed his application on the reasoning that he ought to have appeared before the arbitral body and raised his objection there. Before the High Court his counsel Pavan Kumar Verma, appearing by video conferencing, relied on the Supreme Court’s decision in Electrosteel Steel Limited v. Ispat Carrier Pvt. Ltd. (2025 INSC 525), which held that an objection under Section 47 CPC to execution of an arbitral award is not contingent on filing a petition under Section 34. An award suffering from a patent or inherent lack of jurisdiction, he argued, can be objected to at the execution stage without a Section 34 challenge. The Court was not persuaded.
The 90-day window, and Section 14
Counsel then submitted that limitation for a Section 34 application had already expired and that the petitioner had approached the executing court bona fide. The Court noted that the period is 90 days from knowledge of the award, observing that “the window for filing the objections to the arbitration award is very narrow”, and that Section 5 of the Limitation Act does not apply to Section 34 proceedings. Section 34(3) of the 1996 Act fixes three months for such an application, extendable by a further 30 days at most.
Relief came through Section 14 of the Limitation Act, which excludes time spent bona fide pursuing a proceeding in a court lacking jurisdiction. Relying on Consolidated Engineering Enterprises v. Irrigation Department and Kirpalsingh v. Government of India, the Court observed that Section 14 does not create a fresh period of limitation but only excludes a certain period.
Liberty to file under Section 34
Liberty was granted to the petitioner to file objections under Section 34 before the competent court. If he does so, the period from the filing of his Section 47 application until October 12, 2026, the date of the decision, is to be excluded in calculating limitation. Whether Yogesh is the proprietor of Mangal Creation was not decided; that question will be tested before the court hearing the Section 34 application.
Case Title: Yogesh v. Porwal Feb Tax through Owner/Authorised Representative and Others (case number not available)
Bench: Justice Vinay Saraf, Madhya Pradesh High Court (Indore Bench)
Date of Order: October 12, 2026
Appearances: Pavan Kumar Verma, by video conferencing, for the petitioner