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Home › Arbitration: Section 37 Appeal
Karnataka High Court · 11 November 2026

No Second Innings Under Section 37: Road Over Bridge Award Survives Every Attack

A court-appointed arbitrator, participation without protest, an extension granted without penalty, and claims computed on the contract — together they left nothing for the appellate court to correct.

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In Executive Engineer v. M/s Haigreeva Infratech Projects Ltd (Commercial Appeal No. 131 of 2024, decided 11 November 2026), a Division Bench of the Karnataka High Court — Anu Sivaraman and K.S. Bharath Kumar JJ., the judgment authored by Bharath Kumar J. — dismissed a Section 37 appeal against the rejection of a Section 34 challenge to a Rs 4,54,89,696 award in a road-over-bridge construction dispute. The decision is a clean illustration of the two-tier discipline of arbitral review: what fails under Section 34 cannot be re-run under Section 37.

The case in one view

CaseExecutive Engineer v. M/s Haigreeva Infratech Projects Ltd, Commercial Appeal (COMAP) No. 131 of 2024
CourtKarnataka High Court, Bengaluru — Anu Sivaraman and K.S. Bharath Kumar JJ.
Decided11 November 2026 (reserved 5 October 2026)
ContractAgreement of 18 June 2011, Rs 4.96 crore — Road Over Bridge No. 107-A, Raichur; Supplementary Agreement of 20 November 2014
Award23 November 2021 — six of nine claims allowed, Rs 4,54,89,696 with interest; Section 34 challenge dismissed 30 January 2024
OutcomeSection 37 appeal dismissed

The dispute beneath the award

The contractor undertook construction of a road over bridge at Raichur under a 2011 agreement. Completion slipped — on the arbitrator’s findings, because of late mark-out and design changes attributable to the employer — leading to a supplementary agreement in 2014 and an extension of time granted in July 2015 without penalty. A sole arbitrator, appointed by the High Court under Section 11, allowed six of nine claims by an award of 23 November 2021: the final bill, price adjustment, idling of machinery and labour, and overheads computed on the Emden formula.

The employer’s Section 34 petition failed before the Commercial Court, Bengaluru. The Section 37 appeal gathered every available objection — jurisdiction under Section 16, limitation, denial of cross-examination, and a head-by-head attack on the claims — and failed on all of them.

How each objection fell

Jurisdiction. The appointment was court-made under Section 11, and the appellant participated without protest. A Section 16 objection must be raised before the tribunal at the proper stage; it cannot be stored for appeal.
Limitation. The extension of 7 July 2015 without penalty, coupled with unsettled final accounts, kept the claims alive. Limitation in running construction accounts turns on when the employer’s position crystallised — not on the bare completion date.
Procedure. The cross-examination grievance found no traction where the record showed the parties’ cases were put and met on documents the tribunal evaluated.
Merits. Each allowed claim was a plausible, contract-based conclusion. Plausibility is the ceiling of review: neither perversity nor patent illegality was shown, and nothing less unlocks interference.

The precedential spine

The Bench assembled the modern canon of appellate restraint: MMTC v. Vedanta on the derivative nature of Section 37 review; Konkan Railway v. Chenab Bridge and UHL Power on the prohibition against merits reassessment; Larsen Air Conditioning and Delhi Airport Metro Express on the confined meaning of patent illegality; and the recent reaffirmations in Sanman Rice Mills and Somdatt Builders. The through-line is institutional: the arbitrator is the chosen judge of fact and contract; Section 34 is a safety valve, not an appeal; and Section 37 reviews the Section 34 court’s discipline, not the award afresh.

What employers and contractors should take away

Raise Section 16 early or lose it. Participation without protest before a court-appointed arbitrator forecloses the jurisdictional ground for all later stages.
Extensions have consequences. An extension granted without penalty is an admission about responsibility for delay — and it reshapes both limitation and the merits of delay claims.
Formula-based claims hold. Overheads and idling computed on recognised formulae, anchored in proved delay, are arbitrator’s territory that review courts will not re-compute.
Budget for finality. Two tiers of challenge consumed five years after the award without changing a rupee. Parties pricing litigation risk after an adverse award should price exactly that.
For Delhi practice the framework is identical: Section 34 petitions in works-contract matters go to the Commercial Courts or the High Court’s Commercial Division by value, and Section 37 appeals to the Division Bench apply the same restraint — recently restated by the Supreme Court in the SEPCO line — without re-opening facts.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can a Section 16 jurisdictional objection be raised in a Section 37 appeal?

Not successfully in circumstances like these. The sole arbitrator was appointed by the High Court under Section 11, and the appellant participated in the proceedings without protest. A jurisdictional objection not pressed at the proper stage cannot resurface as an appellate ground.

How did the contractor's claims survive limitation?

Completion was delayed by late mark-out and design changes, and the employer itself granted an extension without penalty in July 2015 while final accounts remained unsettled. On that footing the claims — final bill, price adjustment, idling of machinery and labour, and overheads — were within time.

What is the standard of review under Section 37?

Narrower than or coextensive with Section 34 — never wider. Applying MMTC v. Vedanta, Konkan Railway v. Chenab Bridge, UHL Power, Larsen Air Conditioning and the recent line in Sanman Rice Mills and Somdatt Builders, the Division Bench held the appellate court cannot reassess merits; it asks only whether the Section 34 court applied the correct tests.

Was the use of the Emden formula for overheads a ground of challenge?

Computation of delay-related overheads by recognised formulae is an arbitrator's domain. The findings were held to be plausible, contract-based conclusions — not perverse, not patently illegal — and therefore beyond interference at either tier.

Sources

Note: This article is general information about the law and is not legal advice. It does not create an advocate-client relationship. The position stated is as at 13 November 2026 and may have changed since. Readers should verify any provision or decision referred to against the official text and seek advice on their own circumstances.