Sanjit Singh Salwan v. Sardar Inderjit Singh Salwan
Background
The appellants and respondents were rival claimants to trusteeship of the Guru Tegh Bahadur Charitable Trust, which runs a school. The respondents sued for an injunction against the appellants, but during the appeal of an adverse trial court order, both sides agreed to resolve their dispute through a private arbitrator; a resulting award was accepted by both parties and turned into a consent decree by the District Court in 2023. When the appellants later tried to enforce that decree, the respondents reversed course and argued the arbitration itself had been invalid all along because trust disputes cannot legally be arbitrated under Section 92 of the Civil Procedure Code: an argument that succeeded before the Commercial Court and the High Court.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court set aside both lower court orders, holding that the respondents were estopped by their own conduct from now attacking the validity of the very award and consent decree they had earlier embraced and used to get their appeal disposed of. Relying on the doctrine of "approbation and reprobation", that a party cannot accept the benefit of an arrangement and later reject it when inconvenient, the Court found the appellants had altered their position in reliance on the settlement (including withdrawing a police complaint and paying money), so the respondents could not now be permitted to call the underlying award a nullity. The appellants were allowed to revive their execution proceedings to enforce the decree.
Lesson Learnt
A party who accepts and acts upon a settlement or arbitral award, and lets the other side rely on it to their detriment, cannot later turn around and claim the same settlement was invalid once it stops being convenient; the law will hold them to their earlier conduct.