Say the ratio out loud before you open Reasoning — recalling it unprompted is exactly what the exam pays for.
Why it matters
It is the case that exposed the weakness of the tribunal's interim power, and therefore the case that explains why s. 17 was rewritten in 2015. A question on interim measures that does not mention this weakness is incomplete.
Facts
The tribunal made an order of interim measure under s. 17 in the form in which that section was originally enacted, and the question was what such an order could do.
Held
The power of interim measure conferred on the arbitral tribunal by the original s. 17 is a limited one. The tribunal is not a court of law and its orders are not judicial orders. It cannot issue any direction going beyond the reference or the arbitration agreement. An interim order may be addressed only to a party to the arbitration and not to others. No power is conferred on the tribunal to enforce its order, nor does the section provide for judicial enforcement of it.
Reasoning
Step one — the source of the power is the agreement. A tribunal constituted by consent can bind those who consented; it has no authority over strangers, banks, or public officers.
Step two — no coercive machinery. A court's interim order carries the court's contempt and execution powers behind it. Nothing in the original s. 17 supplied an equivalent, so an order that a party ignored was, in practice, unenforceable.
Step three — hence the resort to s. 9. Parties went to court for interim relief even after the tribunal was constituted, which is the pattern Sundaram Finance and Firm Ashok Traders describe.
Exam use
It opens: Compare the interim powers of the court under s. 9 with those of the tribunal under s. 17. Build the answer as: identical range of measures on paper, unequal force in practice, and then the statutory cure.
Give the cure. The 2015 amendment substituted s. 17, and the current position is that an order of the tribunal is enforceable in the same manner as if it were an order of the court. The defect this case identified is the defect the substitution was made to remove. An order under s. 17 is appealable under s. 37(2).
Note the timing rule too: once the tribunal is constituted, the court's s. 9 power is restricted where the tribunal can provide an efficacious remedy.
It does not decide anything about the merits of interim relief — what must be shown to obtain it — only about the character and reach of the tribunal's order.