Vipsie Hospitalitys Pvt Ltd vs. Walianet
Background
In an earlier arbitration dispute over a commercial property, the petitioner had alleged that the respondent used two forged letters to obtain an interim court order in its favour, and filed an application seeking criminal proceedings for perjury under Section 340 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The courts had repeatedly deferred deciding this application until the arbitration concluded; the arbitral tribunal ultimately found the two letters' authenticity "highly doubtful and suspect." A dispute then arose over which specific court should now hear the perjury application.
Decision Breakdown
The Court held that, since the arbitral tribunal had found the documents suspect, the petitioner was entitled to pursue the long-deferred perjury application, and that the correct forum was the court hearing the petitioner's pending challenge to the arbitral award (not the original court that had heard the initial interim-relief petition years earlier), because that court is legally the "successor" court under the Arbitration Act's jurisdiction rules. The Court expressed frustration at the petitioner's own conduct in disputing the forum it had earlier sought.
Lesson Learnt
When a legal dispute passes through arbitration, procedural applications tied to that dispute (like an allegation of forged evidence) generally follow the court handling the arbitration-related case, not whichever earlier court first touched the matter: parties should be consistent about which forum they invoke.