The Bombay high court on April 20 dismissed an appeal filed by Jackie Shroff’s former business partner, Ratnam Iyer, in a $3.5 million dispute in arbitration. Justice S.C. Gupte of the high court had last May set aside a November 2014 arbitral award requiring Jackie to give $3.5 million in liquidated damages to Ratnam Sudesh Iyer, a citizen and resident of Singapore. The award against Shroff was because the arbitrator had held that a letter written by his wife, Ayesha Shroff, was in breach of a dispute settlement agreement of 2011.
Iyer then filed an appeal against Justice Gupte’s order. The division bench of Justices R.D. Dhanuka and V.G. Bisht held that Justice Gupte had “rightly interfered with such perverse and patently illegal award…” The bench directed that Ratnam Iyer should not be allowed to withdraw $2 million deposited with a Bombay bank, for eight weeks, while Jackie can take appropriate legal steps to withdraw it.
Jackie and Iyer, shareholders of an Indian company, had in 1995 entered into a JV with Sony group to set up a TV channel. Following disputes, Shroff filed a complaint in 2010 with the Economic Offences Wing. In 2011, a settlement deed was executed between them to withdraw the complaint. On its withdrawal, $1.5 million would be released to Jackie Shroff from an escrow account and an additional $2 million was also to be kept in an escrow account to be released later.
Jackie’s counsels, Arif Bookwala and Shyam Dewani, argued that Iyer’s appeal be dismissed while Iyer’s counsels, Ankita Singhania and Vishal Gandhi, argued that the single judge had totally overlooked that the settlement deed provided that its violation would disentitle Jackie from receiving $2 million and would need to return $1.5 million. The division bench held that the arbitrator overlooked vital evidence led by Jackie Shroff.