Madras high court declines to appoint arbitrator for Vaikundarajan’s family dispute

Chennai: The Madras high court has dismissed a petition which sought to appoint Justice Shivaraj V.Patil, a retired judge of the Supreme Court, as the sole arbitrator to decide the disputes that have arisen between S.Jegatheesan and his family and his brother and mining baron S.Vaikundarajan and his family.

Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana dismissed the petition filed by S.Jegatheesan, his wife J.Renuka and his children J.Muthurajan, J.Chenthilrajan and J.Subburajan.

According to petitioners, they and Vaikundarajan and his family were partners of various partnership firms, such as Vetrivel Minerals, V.V.Minerals and other firms formed under partnership deed and have been engaged primarily in the business of manufacturing, mining and selling of beach sand minerals. Vaikundarajan was the managing director of those entirely family owned and operated partnership firms.

One another brother of Vaikundarajan and Jegatheesan, S.Chandresan was also a partner of those firms and in 2009. He raised certain disputes which led to the appointment of Justice Shivaraj Patil as the Arbitrator to decide the dispute. The parties arrived at compromise and an award was passed. Thereafter, the present partners were inducted in the firms. There were certain disputes arose among the partners also. Vaikundarajan agreed to divide the properties and informed the petitioners that a kaithadi partition deed dated December 31, 2018, has been prepared by him. As the petitioners throughout believed him, they signed the partition deed without even reading it. When they studied it later, they realized that the properties were not divided equally and some of the properties purchased from and out of the funds of the firms in the names of Vaikundarajan and his family did not find a place in the partition. Hence, they filed the present petition.

Dismissing the petition, the judge said first of all, the parties have admitted the execution of the partition deed. If the same, according to them, was obtained by coercion, they should have filed a suit for declaration that the partition deed was bad for whatever reasons known to them. Besides the partition deed was written in Tamil, which all the parties to the document could write, speak and read. Therefore, the question of misrepresentation, as alleged, does not arise. That apart, when it was not denied that the partition deed was executed with their knowledge and the signatures were obtained only on the document, the plea of fraud or misrepresentation cannot be entertained. Thus, when the partition deed was rightly executed by all, the same was valid and the question of cancellation of the same also does not arise, the judge added.

The judge said the plea of fraud which was general and vague cannot be alleged without basis. According to the petitioners, they signed the document in good faith believing the representation made by Vaikundarajan and his family. However, the nature of representation, what type of representation were made, have not been stated. Admittedly, the parties were aware of the fact that what they were signing was a partition deed and admitted that they had put their signatures. The family partition itself was entered into to achieve peace and harmony in the family, the judge added.

The judge said if the document was not a conciliation agreement, then it would be family arrangement/partition. The intention of the partition deed was only to bring about harmony in the family resolving all the disputes and difference that existed by that point of time. The person, who reconciled the disputes, was the Stepbrother of Vaikundarajan and Jegatheesan and he had adopted the practice in their community as a trade family and if one brother divided the properties, the other brother had the option of selection the properties. It was also not the case of the petitioners that they requested time to go through the partition deed and that they were refused the same.

“Therefore, by no stretch of imagination, the petitioners can ask for reference to Arbitral Tribunal, when they are seeking to set aside the document, admittedly, signed by both the parties. Unless and until the document is set aside in the manner known to law, they cannot attack the validity or otherwise of the same in the present proceedings,” the judge added.