How luck ran out for man running ‘arbitration centre’ in Gandhinagar

most of them land-related. Some of the cases even involved offices of the state government. His cover was blown on October 21 when an officer of the City Civil and Sessions Court in Ahmedabad filed a complaint of cheating against him. He was arrested the same day.

First produced in court on Tuesday, he accused the Ahmedabad Police of “custodial torture”. A medical examination, though, has found only one injury mark near his finger nail, according to sources.

The case has left many befuddled, not least due to the fact that the so-called arbitration centre was running on the premises of a Gandhinagar court.

A resident of Gandhinagar, Christian insisted that the “court” premises had been allotted to him. He also claimed that he had been given membership by at least one association of arbitrators. Both claims are currently under investigation by the police.

Before this, Christian’s latest brush with law was in June last year when the International Centre for Alternative Dispute Resolution (ICADR) had threatened to strip him of membership for practising as an arbitrator for one party, instead of showing an unbiased approach. The issue also came up during the hearing of a matter challenged by the State government-owned Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation (GMDC) before the Gujarat High Court.

According to the latest FIR lodged against him in Karanj police station of Ahmedabad, registrar of the City Civil Court in Bhadra, Hardik Sagar Desai, alleged that Christian had participated in a criminal conspiracy by impersonating as an arbitrator in a land matter before Court-19 at Bhadra. He was booked for forgery, cheating and criminal conspiracy. The FIR stated that Christian had represented himself as an arbitrator in the case of a petitioner, Thakor Babuji Chhanaji, despite neither having an arbitration contract nor possessing any powers to adjudicate over matters of conflict resolution under The Arbitration and Conciliation Act of 1996 kept up the charade in this particular case for five years, between March 2, 2019 and October 21, 2024.

Inspector PT Chaudhary of Karanj police station told The Indian Express, “Christian told us that he had been granted space at the mediation centre on the premises of a local court in Gandhinagar. We are inquiring into that.”

According to police officials, the earliest records that they have of Christian holding his “arbitral court” date back to 2015. From Sector-21 area of Gandhinagar, officials said, he moved to Sector-24 of the capital city before ending up on the court premises. Photographs doing the rounds show him purportedly running his “court”, dressed in a black suit in a room with a “judicial bench” and rows of plastic chairs for the “petitioners” to be seated.

Chaudhary, the investigating officer, said, “In cases where a petitioner was fighting against the government or a public sector company, he would pass awards or orders to the benefit of his client. We are also investigating whether he was engaged in taking money from his client to either ‘arbitrate’ such matters in their favour or leave the matter hanging.”

On his LinkedIn profile, Christian mentions that he is an LLD from the Commonwealth Vocational University of Tonga. He also claims to have a PhD in Philosophy with Conflict Resolution from Vivekanand College in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.

The present case

The recent FIR alleged that Christian had, in a land matter pertaining to the Ahmedabad Collectorate, represented himself as an arbitrator despite not possessing any such legal powers.

The accused not only passed “an award” in the matter but also presented the claim and a statement before a court on March 30, 2019.

In 2015, he was booked by Maninagar police in Ahmedabad on charges of fraud, forgery, illegal detention, and criminal intimidation. Inspector Chaudhary said details of that case have also been sought for the purpose of this latest investigation.

In the GMDC case, Christian had asked the state government PSU to pay Rs 11 lakh to the petitioner by passing a “one-sided award”.

The June 2023 HC order in this case stated, “…the conduct on the part of the respondent no.1 (Christian), is required to be deprecated. Let (him) not befool the innocent people…and pass award without any authority…let me place on record a word of caution to the respondent no.1 that he shall not further indulge into the act of impersonating himself as an arbitrator and conduct arbitration proceedings at his whims and fancies.”

A notice from the ICADR, annexed with this order, stated, “Mr Morris Samuel, Advocate, Gujarat, became Annual Member of ICADR on 17th November, 2014. No Member can represent ICADR as an Arbitrator…Mr Samuel’s Annual Membership will cease shortly because he has been indulging in many malpractices… anybody… dealing with Christian as Arbitrator, etc., will be doing so at his own risk.”

Inspector Chaudhary said two more persons are likely to come forward and file a complaint against Christian.