The parties to the arbitration agreement are residents of Lucknow and Kolkata. The contract was…

Under section 20 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act the parties may agree on the place (seat) of arbitration, and the courts of the seat have exclusive supervisory jurisdiction over a challenge under section 34, as held in Indus Mobile Distribution v Datawind Innovations (2017) and Brahmani River Pellets v Kamachi Industries (2019). The parties agreed on New Delhi and the proceedings were held there, so the petition lies at "Delhi". The parties' places of residence and the place of performance do not displace that choice.