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NHPC Ltd. v. M/S Jai Prakash Associates Ltd.

Civil Appeal · Neutral citation not assigned (Civil Appeal No. 5891 of 2016)Decided 4 Jul 2016
Civil Appeal No. 5891 of 2016
Justice J. Chelameswar · Justice Abhay Manohar Sapre

Background

NHPC had contracted the respondent to carry out civil construction work on the Teesta-V Hydroelectric Project in Sikkim. Payment disputes arose and went to arbitration, where the tribunal awarded the respondent about Rs.356.78 lakh plus 10% simple interest up to the date of the award, and a further 12% simple interest on the total awarded sum thereafter until recovery. A district judge largely upheld this award, but when NHPC appealed to the High Court, the High Court's order mistakenly recorded the interest rates as 12% and 18% instead of the correct 10% and 12% set by the arbitrators: an error both sides agreed was a simple typographical mistake, not a decision on the merits.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court had granted leave only on the narrow question of the correct interest rate, and both parties' counsel, including the respondent's own lawyer, agreed that the High Court's figures of 12% and 18% were an error and that the arbitral tribunal's original rates of 10% (pre-award) and 12% (post-award) were the correct ones. The Court accordingly allowed the appeal in part, simply correcting the interest rate in the High Court's order to match the original arbitral award, with no other change to the outcome and no order as to costs.

Lesson Learnt

Even a case that reaches the Supreme Court can sometimes turn out to be a straightforward correction of a clerical/typographical error made at a lower court, rather than a substantive legal dispute, and courts will fix such errors once both sides agree a mistake occurred.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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