Summary: The Bombay High Court handled a complicated case between Vikram Jamnadas Kothari and the Dosti Group about a land deal and Sun Pharma shares. The main question was whether the issue should be resolved through arbitration. After much discussion, the court decided that arbitration was the way to go.
In 2010, Vikram Jamnadas Kothari and the Dosti Group made a deal. The Dosti Group wanted to buy a company from Kothari that owned a piece of land. They agreed to pay Rs. 59 crores in parts. The first two payments were made, but the last Rs. 10 crores got stuck. To make sure the payments happened, they set up an Escrow Agreement with Barclays as the middleman, using Sun Pharma shares as a guarantee.
The Dosti Group didn’t pay the last Rs. 10 crores, claiming they didn't get enough tenant approvals. Kothari later discovered that the approvals were actually received. This led to a big legal fight. The Dosti Group even filed a criminal complaint, but it didn’t lead to anything.
Kothari wanted arbitration to sort this out, but the Dosti Group argued that Kothari had given up that right by not filing a certain application in another lawsuit. Mr. Snehal Shah, representing the Dosti Group, argued that Kothari missed their chance. But Mr. Gaurav Joshi, for Kothari, insisted that arbitration was the way to go.
"The court must not get into the details of the argument presented by Mr. Shah," argued Mr. Joshi.
Judge Somasekhar Sundaresan decided that the case should go to arbitration. He said the court’s job was only to see if an arbitration agreement existed, not to get into the details. The Mumbai Centre for International Arbitration will handle it.
The court also ordered the Dosti Group to pay Rs. 2.5 lakhs in costs to Kothari for dragging this out. The judge made it clear that this decision doesn’t mean one side is right or wrong about the Rs. 10 crores. The arbitration will figure that out.
This case shows how complicated business deals can get when things go wrong, and how courts decide when arbitration is the best way to settle disputes.
