Shriram EPC Limited vs. Rioglass Solar SA [AIR 2018 SC 4539]
Whether unstamped foreign award could validly be enforced under Sections 48 and 49 of Act?
23. There is no doubt whatsoever that if stamp duties
are leviable in India on foreign awards, the imposition should not be
substantially more onerous than the stamp duty that is imposed on recognition
or enforcement of domestic arbitral awards. For the said Article to apply,
stamp duty must first be leviable on a foreign award, which, as we have held
earlier in this judgment, is not the case. Equally, reliance upon the 194th Law
Commission of India Report, insofar as stamp duty on domestic awards is
concerned, would again have little bearing, given our finding that under the
present state of the law, foreign awards are not liable to stamp duty under the
Indian Stamp Act, 1899.
24. An argument was made by learned Counsel for the
Respondent that Section 47 of the Act requires three things and only three
things to be produced before the Court for enforcement of a foreign award, and
that therefore, stamp duty not being one of the three things required, cannot
ever be levied. We are afraid that this again is an extreme argument. All that
Section 47 deals with is production before the Court of proof of the fact that
a foreign award is sought to be enforced. In no manner does Section 47 interdict
the payment of stamp duty if it is otherwise payable in law. This argument must
thus be rejected. Equally, the argument that Under Section 48(2)(b), even if stamp
duty is payable on a foreign award, it would not be contrary to the public
policy of India, must be rejected.