1. The High Court by the order impugned before us allowed an application under Article 227 of the Constitution of India by directing that a contractual clause["26.3.6 In the event the Party against whom the Award has been granted challenges the Award for any reason in a court of law, it shall make an interim payment to the other Party for an amount equal to 75% (seventy five per cent) of the Award, pending final settlement of the Dispute. The aforesaid amount shall be paid forthwith upon furnishing an irrevocable Bank Guarantee for a sum equal to 120% (one hundred and twenty per cent) of the aforesaid amount. Upon final settlement of the Dispute, the aforesaid interim payment shall be adjusted and any balance amount due to be paid or returned, as the case may be, shall be paid or returned with interest calculated at the rate of 10% (ten per cent) per annum from the date of interim payment to the date of final settlement of such balance."] requiring pre deposit before challenging an arbitral award is not mandatory and therefore, set aside the order of the Commercial Court directing deposit of the award amount as per the contractual clause.

2. Having heard Mr. Debashish Bharuka and Mr.Raghvendra Srivastava, senior counsels for the petitioner and Mr.Avneesh Garg, counsel for the respondent, we are of the opinion that the Special Leave Petition can be disposed of by clarifying the following statutory regime under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996:

                   (i) An arbitral award shall be final and binding on the parties and the persons claiming under them respectively. [Section 35]

                   (ii) Immediately after the time for making an application to set aside the award expires, the arbitral award can be enforced like that of a Civil Court decree. [Section 36(1)]

                   (iii) The award will continue to be enforceable as a decree, even when an application to set aside the arbitral award has been filed and pending. [Section 36(2)]

                   (iv) Enforceability of the award is subject to an orders of stay, passed by a Court on an application made for that purpose. [Section 36(2)]

                   (v) The power of the Court to stay the operation of an award extends to imposing such conditions as it may deem fit and as per the reasons supplied in the order. [Section 36(2) and (3)]

                   (vi) The principles governing stay of a money decree shall apply as Court considers an application for stay of an arbitral award. [Section 36(3)]

3. The award in favour of the petitioner was passed on 10.06.2019. More than six and a half years have passed since the petitioner had started objecting to the maintainability of the Section 34 petition without pre deposit. It is high time, the petitioner seeks execution of the award.

4. While disposing of the Special Leave Petition, we direct that, upon petitioner initiating enforcement of the award under Section 36, the Court considering the application(s) shall decide it as expeditiously as possible. We also direct that the Court will decide the application(s) without being influenced by the observations made by the High Court in the order impugned before us.

5. With these observations the Special Leave Petition shall stands disposed of.

6. Pending application(s), if any, shall stand disposed of.