Bikaner House attachment case: Delhi Court orders release of Rs 92 lakh

Delhi's Patiala House Court on Saturday passed an order to release Rs 92 lakh in favour of a company in an arbitration matter against Nagar Palika Nokha, Rajasthan. District Judge (Commercial) Vidya Prakash passed the order after hearing the counsel for the parties.

Nagar Palika had deposited the amount with the court the last month. Earlier, the court had issued a warrant for attachment of Bikaner House in New Delhi. However, it was subsequently stayed subject to payment.

The High Court has already dismissed the appeal of Nagar Palika against the order of the trial court.

An arbitration award was passed in the favour of a company M/s Enviro Infra Private Limited that had done some work for Nagar Palika.

On January 7, the court granted time to Nagar Palika to place on record if they get any stay from the High Court, otherwise the amount will be released in favour of company M/s Enviro Infra Engineers Pvt. Ltd.

On November 29, the court granted a conditional stay on the attachment of Bikaner House. This stay was subject to depositing the due amount within a week.

This matter is related to an arbitration award in favour of a company that worked for Nagar Palika Nokha, Rajasthan in 2011.

Recently, the court issued a warrant of attachment of Delhi's Bikaner House which is owned by Nagar Palika, Nokha, Rajasthan.

This order was passed in an execution matter for arbitral award passed in favour of M/S Enviro Infra Engineers Pvr. Ltd. Advocate Sahil Garg appeared for the Decree holder company before the court.

He said that the court has granted a conditional stay on the attachment: "If the other party fails to deposit the FD, we will file an application for auction of the attached property. The amount is around one crore now."

Earlier, the court had passed attachment order after noting the noncompliance of directions.

"Keeping in view the aforesaid facts and circumstances and the fact that the Judgement Debtor (JD) had failed to comply with the direction for furnishing an affidavit of their assets despite the grant of repeated opportunities, Court while agreeing with the submissions made on behalf of Decree Holder (DH), finds it a fit case for issuance of warrants of attachment against immovable property of JD namely Bikaner House, New Delhi," the court said in the order passed on November 7.

"Whereas you have failed to satisfy an Award passed against you on the 21st day of January 2020, in favour of M/s Enviro Infra Engineers Pvt. Ltd. for Rs. 50,31,512, it is ordered that you, the said Nagar Palika, Nokha, State of Rajasthan, be, and you are hereby, prohibited and restrained, until the further order of this Court, from transferring or charging the property specified in the schedule hereunto annexed, by sale, gift or otherwise, and that all persons be, and that they are hereby, prohibited from receiving the same by purchase, gift or otherwise," the Court said in the order passed on September 18.

The present execution petition is filed seeking enforcement of the arbitral award dated 21-01-2020 passed by Ld. Arbitral Tribunal. It is an undisputed fact that the JD had preferred petition u/s 34 of Arbitration & Conciliation Act, 1996 bearing OMP(COMM) NO.178/2023 titled "Nagar Palika, Nokha, State Of Rajasthan v. M/S Enviro Infra Engineers Pvt. Ltd." against the aforesaid arbitral award. However, the said petition was dismissed on 24-01-2024, the court noted.

The Counsel of DH had pressed for the issuance of warrants of attachment in respect of the immovable property of JD Bikaner House, New Delhi.