It is permissible for High Court, notwithstanding what Section 11(6A) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 says, to weed out ex-facie time barred claims at the stage of deciding whether or not to make a reference in a Sec. 11(6) application – GNG Trading Pvt. Ltd. Vs. State of HP and another – Himachal Pradesh High Court
Hon’ble High Court of Himachal Pradesh referred the judgments in Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (2021) ibclaw.in 41 SC and Ramachanraiah and Sons (2021) ibclaw.in 48 SC and held that:
(i) It is permissible for the High Court, notwithstanding what subsection (6-A) of Section 11 says, to weed out ex-facie time barred claims at the stage of deciding whether or not to make a reference in a Sec.11(6) application; and in a very limited category of cases, where there is not even a vestige of doubt that the claim is ex facie time-barred, or that the dispute is non-arbitrable, the court may decline to make the reference.
(ii) However, if there is even the slightest doubt, the rule is to refer the disputes to arbitration.
(iii) The arbitration application u/s 11(6) has been dismissed.