A Bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and J.K. Maheshwari held that even if an application under Section 9 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 had been entertained before the constitution of the Tribunal, the Court always has the discretion to direct the parties to approach the Arbitral Tribunal, if necessary by passing a limited order of interim protection, particularly when there has been a long time gap between hearings and the application has for all practical purposes, to be heard afresh, or the hearing has just commenced and is likely to consume a lot of time. The Bench observed that on a combined reading of Section 9 with Section 17 of the Arbitration Act, once an Arbitral Tribunal is constituted, the Court would not entertain or take up for consideration and apply its mind to an application for interim measure, unless the remedy under Section 17 is inefficacious, even though the application may have been filed before the constitution of the Arbitral Tribunal. The bar of Section 9(3) would not operate, once an application has been entertained and taken up for consideration, where hearing has been concluded and judgment has been reserved.