In Brief
The appellant, a Chinese construction corporation, challenged the Delhi High Court's order directing it to replace an irrevocable bank guarantee from ICBC (a Chinese bank with Indian operations and a Scheduled Bank) with one from a Scheduled Indian Bank, to secure a Rs.142 crore arbitral award against it. The appellant had incurred Rs.30 lakhs in charges to obtain the ICBC guarantee. Justice Banerjee held that ICBC, as a Scheduled Bank regulated under Indian law, is legally equivalent to a Scheduled Indian Bank and the direction to replace it was unjustified. However, Justice Ramasubramanian (dissenting) held that the matter arose from the appellant's own offer to furnish a Scheduled Indian Bank guarantee and the High Court merely corrected an error; hence, it did not raise a substantial question of law for Supreme Court intervention. The Court split: one judge allowed the appeal, the other dismissed it as not raising justiciable constitutional questions.",
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