Singapore top court sets aside 'copy-pasted' arbitral award presided by former CJI Dipak Misra

New Delhi: The Singapore Court of Appeals has set aside an arbitral award related to railways contract after noticing that the tribunal headed by former Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra had copy-pasted 212 out of 451 paragraphs from earlier awards between same parties and on different issues.

The matter related to a special purpose vehicle set up to manage a network of Dedicated Freight Corridors in India, and a consortium of three companies which was awarded a tender in 2014 to manage the western Dedicated Freight Corridor.

Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India (DFCCIL) is a Special Purpose Vehicle set up under the administrative control of the Ministry of Railways to undertake planning and development, mobilisation of financial resources and construction, maintenance and operation of the Dedicated Freight Corridors.

Justice K K Lahoti, former Chief Justice of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, and Justice Gita Mittal, former Chief Justice of the Jammu & Kashmir High Court were nominated as arbitrators by the appellants and the respondent, respectively.

Justice Misra, the former Chief Justice of India, was nominated as president of the Tribunal by his co-arbitrators.

The Singapore court was categorical that the copying compromised integrity of the arbitration process, by drawing materials from parallel arbitration that the parties had no access to and thus effectively denying them right to be heard.