What are essential requirements for valid, binding and enforceable arbitration agreement?

A reading of the aforementioned sections in
juxtaposition goes to show that in order to constitute a
valid, binding and enforceable arbitration agreement,

the requirements contained in Section 7 have to be
satisfied strictly. These requirements, apart from
others, are (1) there has to be an agreement (2) it has
to be in writing (3) parties must sign such agreement
or in other words, the agreement must bear the
signatures of the parties concerned and (4) such
agreement must contain an arbitration clause.
24) In other words, aforementioned four conditions
are sine qua non for constituting a valid and
enforceable arbitration agreement. Failure to satisfy
any of the four conditions would render the arbitration
agreement invalid and unenforceable and, in
consequence, would result in dismissal of the
application filed under Section 11 of the Act at its
threshold.

Reportable
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION
CIVIL APPEAL NO.8164 OF 2016
(ARISING OUT OF SLP(C) No. 13369 of 2013)
Shri Vimal Kishor Shah & Ors.
VERSUS
Mr. Jayesh Dinesh Shah & Ors. 

Citation:AIR 2016 SC 3889

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Whether oral agreement is enforceable in law?

There is no dispute that such oral agreement is enforceable in law.

Bombay High Court

Subhash Dhanraj Sankla vs Kajkhushroo Alias Kaki Phiroze ... on 12 September, 2013

Bench: Anoop V. Mohta

Citation:2013(6) MHLJ 296 Bom

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Whether agreement of sell which prescribes date of execution retrospectively is enforceable?

An agreement to sell which
prescribes the date of execution retrospectively is not enforceable being a
vague contract for grant of discretionary relief under the Specific Relief Act,
1963 as that would dislodge any target date set for registration of sale deed
and leave the entire deal in a confounded mess. This is back to the future
syndrome. The drafters of the Contract Act knew the pitfalls of slippery fish
in muddy waters of contracts had the foresight to enact the provisions of

section 29 of the Act to ensure that whenever bargains were struck the
contractual terms should be sufficiently certain, and not too vague or too
ambiguous, to be legally enforceable. The test lies is in the language used, if
one or the other terms conflict with each other as to lend uncertainty on the
contract read as a whole integrated document in the overarching intention
of the parties expressed in language and the res gestae which led to formal
writing, and with all these issues examined from the point of view of a
“reasonable person”.
On a reading of the case law cited by Mr. Majithia, one is still left
facing a document which does not meet the tests of an intention to sell
immovable property as the agreement extends the principle of mortgage in
recital 3, apart from other glaring discrepancies as to dates of performance.
If there was an offer from Bachan Kaur for whatever it may be worth there
is no clear and categorical intention expressed in the alleged agreements to
sell that they were intended to act as a binding contract of sale and I would
thus lean in favour of Mr. Markan's submission that what is vague to the
degree experienced in the exhibited document cannot be fleshed out by
imaginative accretions or flights of fancy. The discretionary relief of
specific performance should not be decreed on a plank of the suit exhibits
and, therefore, this court is of the considered opinion that the agreements
fall within the vice and purview of section 29 of the Contract Act, 1872 and
accordingly the substantial question is answered by holding that the
agreements suffer from vagueness and are not enforceable in law by reading
and giving effect to section 29 of the Contract Act with the principles in the
Specific Relief Act, 1963 and, therefore, defendant # 1 was within her rights
to avoid performance. Even assuming that the documents had Bachan
Kaur's thumb impressions, which she had stoutly disputed in the trial as one
on a agreement to sell, even then on refutation of the agreement as ad idem I
tend to think that onus had shifted to the plaintiffs to prove them as
governing the intention of the parties which they failed to meet the
standards of by production of dependable evidence coming from any other
source in the trial court record. The more I ponder the more strongly I feel
this case is not fit for award of specific performance of the property in

dispute.
40. For the many reasons recorded above, it is held that the sale
agreement is hit by section 29 of the Contract Act for being vague,
ambiguous and uncertain. It was never intended by mortgagor to sell her
property to the mortgagee and was an extension of the mortgage deed in
existence prior thereto. It matters little if the term "agreement to sell" or
"sale deed" in incorporated in the Exhibited document. The sale agreement
is dated "2.6.1980" while the date of registration of sale deed was fixed as
"13.3.1980". What can any person of reasonable intelligence make of this?
Parties could not go back in time to execute the sale deed when the date of
execution was prior to the date of the agreement. Plaintiffs did not put the
defendant to notice of change by extension of the period of execution of
sale deed by a separate contract or a corrigendum signed by mutual consent
to go to office of the Sub Registrar for registration of the conveyance deed.
The lacuna was fatal enough and tended to remove the base of a suit for
specific performance which depends by the nature of things on future target
dates agreed upon and compliances made to fructify a contract into a sale
deed or a decree for execution of an agreement when defendant defaulted in
performance of his part of the contract or within reasonable time of it where
time is not the essence of the contract. 
IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH
 RSA No. 2256 of 1987 (O&M)
 Date of Decision: 15.05.2015

Bachan Kaur through her LRs
Sadhu Singh and others
... Appellants
 Versus
Kaka Singh and others ... Respondents
CORAM:- HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE RAJIV NARAIN RAINA
Citation: AIR 2016(NOC)291 P&H

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