Question

The judgment in ............................. skews the delicate balance, carefully crafted by the Model Law (and enshrined in s 34), between finality of arbitral awards on one hand and permissible judicial review on the other.

• A. Renu Sagar Power Co vs. General Electric Corporation
• B. ONGC vs. Saw Pipes Ltd.
• C. Sundaram Finance vs. NEPC
• D. Olympus Superstructures Pvt. Ltd vs. Meena Vijay Khetan

Hint:

The evolution of the term "public policy" is central to understanding arbitration law in India. Remember the key cases in sequence: \textit{Renu Sagar} (narrow interpretation), \textit{Saw Pipes} (wide interpretation including "patent illegality"), and the subsequent 2015 Amendment (which restricted the \textit{Saw Pipes} interpretation).

Answer 1

The Correct Option is B

The key phrase in the question is skewing the balance between finality and judicial review, so the task is to find which case actually expanded judicial review beyond what the Model Law intended.

1. Renu Sagar Power Co vs. General Electric Corporation: Narrowed public policy for foreign awards, reinforcing finality rather than skewing the balance.
2. ONGC vs. Saw Pipes Ltd.: Broadened public policy under Section 34 to include patent illegality, opening domestic awards to challenge on their merits far beyond what the Model Law's limited grounds contemplated. This is exactly the skewing the question refers to.
3. Sundaram Finance vs. NEPC: Concerned interim relief provisions, not the public policy ground for setting aside awards.
4. Olympus Superstructures Pvt. Ltd vs. Meena Vijay Khetan: Concerned validity of an arbitration clause for future disputes, unconnected to Section 34's scope.

Since the second case is the one that widened judicial review at the expense of finality, the correct answer is ONGC vs. Saw Pipes Ltd.

Answer 2

Another useful check is the aftermath of each ruling, since a decision that truly upset the finality-review balance would provoke a legislative correction, which is exactly what happened here.

1. Renu Sagar Power Co vs. General Electric Corporation: This ruling was not the target of any later legislative correction; if anything, it was treated as the more balanced and narrower articulation of public policy.
2. ONGC vs. Saw Pipes Ltd.: This ruling's broad reading of public policy to include patent illegality was widely criticized for opening domestic awards to merits review, and the legislature responded through the 2015 amendment to the Act, which narrowed and clarified the public policy and patent illegality grounds specifically to undo the effect of this judgment. The very existence of that corrective amendment confirms this is the judgment that skewed the balance.
3. Sundaram Finance vs. NEPC: Did not trigger any amendment aimed at correcting the finality-versus-review balance.
4. Olympus Superstructures Pvt. Ltd vs. Meena Vijay Khetan: Concerned a separate question of arbitration clause validity and prompted no such corrective legislation.

Since only the second case's effect on the finality-review balance was significant enough to require a corrective 2015 amendment, the correct answer is ONGC vs. Saw Pipes Ltd.