Supreme Court clarified on how to determine if an allegation of fraud falls under “Fraud Exception” to Arbitrability

In AVITEL POST STUDIOZ LIMITED & ORS. vs HSBC PI HOLDINGS (MAURITIUS) LIMITED, the Supreme Court was hearing an appeal from the interlocutory judgment and order passed in the appeal under section 9 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 by the Bombay High Court in a dispute between HSBC and Avitel India.

HSBC had alleged that the Appellants had committed fraud by siphoning off the funds provided by them. As the agreement entered into by HSBC and the Appellants contained arbitration clause, HSBC approached the Singapore Arbitration Centre and the arbitration committee so formed executed award in favour of HSBC who filed application before the Bombay High Court for execution of the award.

The Appellants contended objected to the award on various grounds and further argued that as fraud has been alleged, the dispute cannot be arbitrated. 

The Supreme Court has held that “serious allegations of fraud” as a ground for exemption from arbitral proceedings arise only if either of the two tests laid down are satisfied, and not otherwise.

The first test is satisfied only when it can be said that the arbitration clause or agreement itself cannot be said to exist in a clear case in which the court finds that the party against whom breach is alleged cannot be said to have entered into the agreement relating to arbitration at all.

The second test can be said to have been met in cases in which allegations are made against the State or its instrumentalities of arbitrary, fraudulent, or malafide conduct, thus necessitating the hearing of the case by a writ court in which questions are raised which are not predominantly questions arising from the contract itself or breach thereof, but questions arising in the public law domain.

The Supreme Court observed that in the light of the aforesaid judgments, paragraph 27(vi) of Afcons (supra) and paragraph 36(i) of Booz Allen (supra), must now be read subject to the rider that the same set of facts may lead to civil and criminal proceedings and if it is clear that a civil dispute involves questions of fraud, misrepresentation, etc. which can be the subject matter of such proceeding under section 17 of the Contract Act, and/or the tort of deceit, the mere fact that criminal proceedings can or have been instituted in respect of the same subject matter would not lead to the conclusion that a dispute which is otherwise arbitrable, ceases to be so.

Section 10 of the Contract Act states that all agreements are contracts if they are made with the free consent of parties competent to contract, for a lawful consideration and with a lawful object, and are not hereby expressly declared to be void. Section 14 states that consent is said to be free when it is not caused inter alia by fraud as defined in section 17. Importantly, the section goes on to say that consent is said to be so caused when it would not have been given but for the existence, interalia, of such fraud. Where such fraud is proved, and consent to an agreement is caused by fraud, the contract is voidable at the option of the party whose consent was so caused.

However, a distinction is made between a contract being obtained by fraud and performance of a contract (which is perfectly valid) being vitiated by fraud or cheating. The latter would fall outside section 17 of the Contract Act, in which the remedy for damages would be available, but not the remedy for treating the contract itself as being void (see pp. 311-312). This is for the reason that the words “with intent to deceive another party thereto or his agent” must be read with the words “or to induce him to enter into the contract”, both sets of expressions speaking in relation to the formation of the contract itself. This is further made clear by sections 10, 14 and 19, which have already been referred to hereinabove, all of which deal with “fraud” at the stage of entering into the contract. Even section 17(5) which speaks of “any such act or omission as the law specially deals to be fraudulent” must mean such act or omission under such law at the stage of entering into the contract. Thus, fraud that is practiced outside of section 17 of the Contract Act, i.e., in the performance of the contract, may be governed by the tort of deceit, which would lead to damages, but not rescission of the contract itself.