[2026:RJ-JP:25824-DB] HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE FOR RAJASTHAN BENCH AT JAIPUR D.B. Civil Miscellaneous Appeal No. 2324/2023 URN: CMA / 3683U / 2023 1 Govind Pujara S/o Late Sh. Meghraj Ji, Father/o Meghraj, Aged About 62 Years, Meghsons Mension, M.i. Road, Jaipur 2 Suresh Pujara S/o Late Sh. Meghraj Ji, Aged About 55 Years, Meghsons Mension, M.i. Road, Jaipur 3 Chandi Ji, Alias Chandu Pujara S/o Late Sh. Meghraj Ji, Aged About 65 Years, Meghsons Mension, M.i. Road, Jaipur 4 Dheeraj Pujara S/o Late Sh. Sunil Pujara, Aged About 27 Years, Meghsons Mension, M.i. Road, Jaipur ----Appellants Versus 1 M/s Elenees Housing And Construction Ltd., Company Adhiniyam 1956 Ke Adheen Ek Registered Company , Registered Office D-12, Ambabari, Jaipur, Prabandh Nideshak Sh. Laxmi Narayan Sharma S/o Sh. Kishan Lal Sharma 2 Smt. Lajwanti Devi W/o Sh. Ishwar Pujara., R/o Siddhi Vinayak Apartments C-90, Second Floor, Ganesh Vihar, Model Town, Malviya Nagar, Jaipur. 3 Rajesh S/o Late Sh. Ishwar Purajara, Aged About 46 Years, R/o Siddhi Vinayak Apartments C-90, Second Floor, Ganesh Vihar, Model Town, Malviya Nagar, Jaipur. 4 Gupesh S/o Late Sh. Ishwar Pujara, Aged About 43 Years, R/o Siddhi Vinayak Apartments C-90, Second Floor, Ganesh Vihar, Model Town, Malviya Nagar, Jaipur. 5 Smt Neetu D/o Late Sh. Ishwar Pujara, Aged About 40 Years, R/o Siddhi Vinayak Apartments C-90, Second Floor, Ganesh Vihar, Model Town, Malviya Nagar, Jaipur. ----Respondents For Appellant(s) : Mr. Parteek Kasliwal Ms. Priyanka Tiwari [2026:RJ-JP:25824-DB] (2 of 7) [CMA-2324/2023] Ms. Vidushi Singh For Respondent(s) : Mr. Sandeep Pathak Mr. Utkarsh Mehta Mr. Ashok Kumar Sharma Mr. Parneet Kaur HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE ARUN MONGA HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE MANEESH SHARMA Order(Oral) Reportable 09/07/2026 Per: Arun Monga,J. 1. The present appeal is directed against an order dated 19.05.2023 passed by the learned Commercial Court, Jaipur, whereby Application under Section 34(4) of Arbitration and Conciliation Act, seeking to place additional documents on record, stay the proceedings and remit the award back to the learned Arbitrator for reconsideration was dismissed. 2. Briefly stated, the facts giving rise to the present appeal are that the respondent, M/s. Elenees Housing and Construction Ltd., invoked the arbitration clause by filing a claim petition in relation to an agreement to sell dated 23.12.1995, whereunder the appellants had agreed to sell the subject plot of land to the respondent for a total consideration of Rs. 3,50,00,000/-. 2.1 The appellants contested the claim on the ground that the agreement dated 23.12.1995 stood terminated by a subsequent agreement dated 16.11.1999, under which the sum of Rs. 13,00,000/- paid by the respondent had also been settled. It was further contended that the respondent had failed to establish its readiness and willingness to perform the contract, having not made the payment stipulated under Clause 2 of the agreement, and was therefore not entitled to the discretionary relief of specific performance. 2.2 By award dated 30.12.2015, the learned Arbitrator allowed the respondent's claim and directed the respondent to pay Rs. [2026:RJ-JP:25824-DB] (3 of 7) [CMA-2324/2023] 10,00,00,000/-, in addition to the Rs. 13,00,000/- already paid, within three months, whereupon the appellants were to execute and register the sale deed and hand over possession of the property. 2.3 Aggrieved by the award, the appellants filed an application under Section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 before the learned Commercial Court No. 4, Jaipur Metropolitan-II, which is still pending for consideration. 2.4 During the pendency of those proceedings, the appellants filed another application under Section 34(4) of the Act seeking resumption of the arbitral proceedings, on the ground that certain subsequent orders and decrees passed by various courts and the Debt Recovery Tribunal had a bearing on the performance of the agreement. The learned Commercial Court dismissed the said application by order dated 19.05.2023. 2.5 Hence, the present appeal. 3. In the aforesaid background, we have heard the rival contentions and perused the record. 4. At the outset, we find merit in the submission of learned counsel for the appellants that the learned learned Commercial Court committed a serious irregularity in law in holding that it lacked jurisdiction to entertain the application under Section 34(4) of the Act. A bare reading of Section 34(4) makes it clear that the court seized of a Section 34 petition is fully empowered and competent to entertain such an application and to pass an appropriate order thereon, either allowing or declining it, on its merits. The learned learned Commercial Court, therefore, ought to have entertained the application and decided it on its own merits, instead of dismissing it summarily on the erroneous premise that it lacked jurisdiction. To that limited extent, the impugned order cannot be sustained and the same is thus set aside. [2026:RJ-JP:25824-DB] (4 of 7) [CMA-2324/2023] 5. Ordinarily, upon setting aside the order on this ground, we would have remanded the matter to the learned learned Commercial Court for a fresh decision on the application. In the present case, however, having had the occasion to examine the contents of the application itself, we consider it appropriate, in exercise of our jurisdiction under Section 37 read with the powers available under Section 34(4) of the Act, to withdraw the application to ourselves and decide it, rather than prolong the proceedings by remand. 6. Upon hearing arguments upon the application and on perusal of the contents thereof, we are constrained to dismiss the application, for the reasons stated hereinafter. 7. First and foremost, we begin with the caveat that the contents of the application, ex facie, do not attract any of the contours envisaged under Section 34(4) of the Act. 8. Section 34(4) is a limited remedy. Its object is to enable the arbitral tribunal to resume proceedings, or take such other action, as would eliminate a curable ground for setting aside the award, for instance, by supplying reasons on an issue already decided or by curing a procedural defect. It is not a vehicle for reopening the merits of the award or for inviting the learned Arbitrator to re-adjudicate concluded issues. 9. Tested on this touchstone, the application filed by the appellants appears, in substance, to be an objection petition assailing the award on merits rather than one seeking any curative adjudication from the learned Arbitrator on an undecided or defectively decided issue. 10. The above position is evident from the contents of the application itself. It is, inter alia, pleaded therein that Respondent No. 1's application under Section 9 of the Act, filed on 27.03.2004, was made about eight years after the agreement and beyond the three-year [2026:RJ-JP:25824-DB] (5 of 7) [CMA-2324/2023] period of limitation reckoned from both the agreement and the termination agreement; and that despite acquiring knowledge of the termination through the affidavit of Shri J.K. Chawla, Respondent No. 1 neither raised a timely claim nor instituted any suit for specific performance. 10.1. It is further pleaded that the award is contrary to public policy, having been passed to confer undue benefit upon Respondent No. 1, and that the learned Arbitrator granted specific performance without any material demonstrating that Respondent No. 1 had performed its obligations or was ready and willing to do so. According to the appellants, under Clause 2 of the agreement, Respondent No. 1 was required to pay Rs. 50 lakhs to Rs. 1 crore within six months, whereupon the appellants would have cleared the bank loan on the property and delivered possession; and under Clause 6, Respondent No. 1 was obliged to obtain a power of attorney, have building plans prepared and approved by the Jaipur Development Authority, arrange materials and connections, and carry out construction-related work and yet it took no steps, whatsoever. It is pleaded that there was no condition requiring the appellants to first clear the encumbrance from their own funds, and that had Respondent No. 1 genuinely been willing to perform, it would at least have offered, by notice, to deposit the amount with the bank itself, which it never did, being aware that the agreement stood cancelled. 10.2. It is also pleaded that the appellants produced the original Termination Agreement belatedly because they could not initially recall where it had been kept, yet the learned Arbitrator, on mere conjecture, treated the document as forged, and further erred in discounting the report of the handwriting expert, Ms. Renu, while relying upon a comparatively less reliable expert report. [2026:RJ-JP:25824-DB] (6 of 7) [CMA-2324/2023] 10.3. The appellants further averred that Respondent No. 1 lacked the funds required to make payment; that under Clause 3 of the agreement the outstanding balance doubled every three years, so that against a total consideration of Rs. 3.50 crores the amount payable had, by now, grown to Rs. 425 crores; and that the learned Arbitrator nevertheless directed execution of the sale deed on payment of only Rs. 10 crores, without disclosing any basis or formula for that figure, without obtaining any government valuation, and while ignoring the manifold rise in property values since 1995. It is further pleaded that, owing to Respondent No. 1's failure to pay, the appellants could not repay their bank loans and consequently faced recovery and auction proceedings at the instance of The Rajasthan Urban Co-operative Bank (settled on payment of Rs. 10.80 lakhs), UCO Bank before the Debt Recovery Tribunal in respect of Megh Sons Departmental Store (compromised at Rs. 63.31 lakhs on 06.04.2009), Bank of India in respect of Rolex Electronics (Rs. 41.80 lakhs paid around July 2009), and The Urban Co- operative Bank, Sudarshanpura, in respect of Electronics & Gift (settled at Rs. 6.50 lakhs on 10.03.2000), thereby suffering great hardship and expense, of which Respondent No. 1 was fully aware. 10.4. Pertinently, the application itself states that all the above circumstances were pleaded before the learned Arbitrator, who nonetheless ignored them. 10.5. Finally, the stand taken in the application is that the findings of the learned Arbitrator are non-speaking and unreasoned, and that the learned Arbitrator merely indulged in fault-finding against the appellants in order to benefit Respondent No. 1, for all of which reasons the award deserves to be set aside. 11. A conjoint reading of the above stand taken in the application makes the position clear, i.e., each of the grounds urged in the [2026:RJ-JP:25824-DB] (7 of 7) [CMA-2324/2023] application goes to the merits and validity of the award itself. Be it limitation, readiness and willingness, appreciation of the termination agreement and the expert evidence, adequacy of consideration, and the quality of reasoning. Indeed, by the appellants' own admission, these very circumstances were already pleaded before, and considered or disregarded by, the learned Arbitrator. There is, therefore, no undecided issue or curable defect that could be remitted to the arbitral tribunal under Section 34(4); what the appellants effectively seek is a re- adjudication of the award on merits, which is impermissible under that provision. Such grounds are appropriately to be urged, if at all, in the pending Section 34 proceedings. 12. The application u/s 34(4), ibid, is, accordingly, bereft of merit and deserves to be dismissed and it is also ordered accordingly. 13. Before parting, however, we make it clear that the appellants shall be at liberty to raise all objections against the award, including those pleaded in the application under Section 34(4) which stands dismissed by us, in the pending proceedings under Section 34 of the Act. The dismissal of the application shall not be construed as any expression of opinion by this Court on the merits of the objections pleaded therein, which shall be decided by the learned learned Commercial Court uninfluenced by the present order. 14. All pending application(s) also stand disposed of. (MANEESH SHARMA),J (ARUN MONGA),J 37/Tushar/Rachna