Quality Arbitration Integral To Ease Of Doing Business, Reducing Court’s Burden: PM Modi

The legal fraternity and the executive took a strong stand that India is ready to become an arbitration hub despite bottlenecks at NITI Aayog's Global Arbitration conference.

On the last day of the three-day conference, Prime Minister Narendra Modi stressed the need for quality arbitration to reduce the burden on courts and make India a preferred destination for arbitration.

The prime minister also emphasised the need to establish an international arbitration bar comprising trained lawyers. He further listed challenges faced by the arbitration system at present which include availability of excellent quality and globally recognised arbitrators, professional conduct, ensuring neutrality, timely and cost effective completion of proceedings.

Conceding that concerns raised during the conference over Indian judiciary’s interference with arbitral awards were "not misplaced," the Chief Justice of India talked about the need to sensitise the judiciary on the importance of arbitration.

The Chief Justice added that concerns over speedy judicial appointments remain as there are "18,000 judges and 50 million cases in this country and the avalanche of cases constantly puts the judicial system under great stress."

Agreeing with the Chief Justice of India, Sundaresh Menon, Chief Justice of Supreme Court of Singapore urged courts and lawyers to "uphold the integrity of arbitration process."

Singapore and London are the most sought-after and preferred destinations for arbitration. While expressing his anxiety over conflicting views by different judges on the arbitral awards, the Chief Justice of India floated the idea of holding special programmes for judges to deal with arbitration cases.

The conference saw the legal fraternity criticising the time limit of one year to resolve arbitration disputes as defined under the amended Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996.

The Attorney General for India Mukul Rohatgi strongly disagreed with the criticism by saying that "if criminal cases can be decided in a year, it isn't too short a time period for arbitration cases to get decided."

Over the three-day conference held in Delhi, Indian and foreign experts from the legal community stressed the need for better infrastructure, trained lawyers and judges for speedy arbitration proceedings, and curtailing judicial interference in final arbitral awards.