Toyota Kirloskar Motor Private Limited vs M/S Radha Krishna Automobile Private Limited: On Monday, the Supreme Court selected former judge Justice RV Raveendran as the sole arbitrator in the dispute over a dealership agreement between Toyota Kirloskar and Radha Krishna Automobile.
The order was issued by a bench consisting of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justices PS Narasimha, and JB Pardiwala after it was noted that both parties desired to have the dispute transferred to arbitration.
The Karnataka High Court’s ruling from November 2022 terminating the parties’ dealership agreement was being appealed, and the Supreme Court was hearing it.
The same was overturned by the highest court after taking note of the argument made by the attorney for petitioner Toyota that the respondents’ dealership should continue to operate for three weeks as a “holding over” even though they are not entitled to any continuation of the current arrangement.
During the aforesaid period of three weeks, it will be open to the respondent to move the sole arbitrator for interim relief under Section 17 of the Act. Any such application … shall be decided on its merits uninfluenced by any of the observations contained in the impugned judgment,
The Apex Court held in it’s order.
The bench made it clear that it had not made any judgments about the case’s merits.
After enrolling as an attorney in 1968, Justice Raveendran was promoted to the Karnataka High Court in 1993. In 2004, he was appointed Chief Justice of the Madhya Pradesh High Court. In October 2005, he was promoted to the Supreme Court.
In October 2021, the Supreme Court established a three-person expert group to investigate the Pegasus monitoring issue, but no proof of the software in the mobile devices was looked at. He served as the committee’s chair.
The former Supreme Court justice is a member of the Hyderabad-based International Arbitration and Mediation Centre’s Board of Trustees.
Toyota was represented by senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi and Kavin Gulati.
The respondents were represented by senior advocate KK Venugopal, Shyam Divan, S Guru Krishna Kumar, Dr. Menaka Guruswamy, and Vikram Pooserla.
[Read Order]
