Allahabad High Court: A Division Bench of Govind Mathur, CJ and Siddhartha Verma, J. had issued certain direction earlier in order to meet the eventualities occurring as a consequence to lockdown.
Bench has further directed that in view of the above that,
the period of twelve months for requiring the award to be made under Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 other than in International Commercial Arbitration is to be extended.
Thus the bench stated that,
Accordingly, it is directed that if in any arbitral proceedings the pleadings under sub-section (4) of Section 23 of the Act have been completed and the period of twelve months has expired or is going to be expired on or after 25th March, 2020 then the same stands extended upto 25th May, 2020.
Further the Court also noted that that prior to lockdown several release orders were granted but due to non-availability of sureties they have not been released. Therefore, looking at the same, Bench stated that,
“…all the accused-applicants whose bail applications came to be allowed on or after 15th March, 2020 but have not been released due to non-availability of sureties as a consequence to lockdown may be released on executing personal bond as ordered by the Court or to the satisfaction of the jail authorities where such accused is imprisoned, provided the accused-applicants undertakes to furnish required sureties within a period of one month from the date of his/her actual release.” [In re State of U.P. (Suo Motu), 2020 SCC OnLine All 300 , decided on 06-04-2020]