Doctrine precluding a party from taking advantage of its own wrong in pre-arbitral machinery

Under well-established principles of contract law and arbitration jurisprudence, no party can be permitted to take advantage of its own wrong or frustrate pre-arbitral dispute resolution procedures to escape arbitration. Where a contract prescribes multi-tiered escalatory prerequisites—such as referring disputes to an engineer or adjudicator within stipulated time limits—such procedural steps, though ordinarily contemplated, are capable of being waived either expressly or through party conduct. If an employer or contracting authority, through its own delays, omissions, or unilateral actions, disables the compliance of preceding escalatory stages, it is deemed to have waived such procedural prerequisites. Consequently, a defaulting party is legally precluded from asserting that the claims of the opposite party are time-barred or non-referable due to non-adherence to pre-arbitral timelines, and cannot rely on such technicalities to exclude the tribunal's jurisdiction. (M/s Bhagheeratha Engineering Ltd. Vs State of Kerala | 2026 INSC 4)