Supreme Court judge, Justice MR Shah, has said that credible and technology-driven institutions like IDRC are making India a hub of International Commercial Arbitration.
Speaking at the Indian Dispute Resolution Centre’s second Arbitrate in India Conclave 2023 on Saturday, Justice Shah said, “We have to repose the confidence in the mind of the foreign investors that in India there shall be speedy and timely resolution of the disputes.
“Minimal interference by the Courts against the Arbitral Awards would strengthen the speedy and timely disposal. I am sure that the credible and technology driven establishments like IDRC shall cater the need in achieving the goal of ‘Arbitrate in India.’
The Conclave was organised in collaboration with the Bar Council of India’s India International University of Legal Research and Education, Goa (IIULER) at Dr. Ambedkar International Centre, Janpath, New Delhi.
The event marked the third anniversary of IDRC.
Justice M R Shah, Judge, Supreme Court of India, who was the Chief Guest at the event, delivered the Presidential Address.
It was followed by the panel discussion on “Making India a hub of International Commercial Arbitration: Current Trends & Challenges in Arbitration in Lieu of allowing Foreign Law Firms in India”.
The panelists for the discussion were:
- Hon’ble Ms. Justice Indu Malhotra, Former Judge, Supreme Court of India [Chair]
- Sh. Tushar Mehta, Solicitor General of India
- Sh. Manan Kumar Mishra, Senior Advocate and Chairman, Bar Council of India
- Sh. Tejas Karia, Head Arbitration, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas
- Sh. Ratan K. Singh, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India
- Sh. Shashank Garg, Advocate, High Court of Delhi [Moderator]
Justice Shah, in his presidential address, stated that, “Growth of global trade increases the importance of Alternative Dispute Resolution (“ADR”) as a mechanism of resolving disputes. A stable dispute resolution is necessary to attract foreign investment in India. Unless there is timely and cost-effective resolution of disputes, India cannot become the hub for international Arbitration. There is a need to understand the reasons due to which India is not being able to perform well in this domain and then work on these areas. Hon’ble Mr. Justice Shah concluded by saying that minimum court interference is imperative to achieve the goal of making India the hub of international arbitration”.
Justice Shah further said, “Timely resolution of the disputes more particularly the commercial disputes in a cost-effective manner is the need of the day. Various arbitration centers like the IDRC are catering the need of cost effective and speedy resolution of the disputes”.
“Within a short time, the IDRC has earned the name and reputation in the field of dispute resolution. I am happy to note that IDRC has accomplished more than one thousand one hundred plus arbitration proceedings and thus have contributed in achieving the goal “Let’s make Resolution in India” a reality.
“Divyansh H. Rathi, Founder Director, IDRC is a very enthusiastic and young. I wish all the success to the IDRC in helping the people to resolve the disputes, more particularly in the field of commercial disputes”, he added.
Justice Shah said, “When we talk about the arbitration in India, first of all we have to prepare ourselves to provide a platform in India. A time has how come to seriously think why in the case of international arbitration/disputes, the people go out of the country.
“What are the negative points and why India is not able to compete in the field of arbitration is a serious thing which is required to be considered. It is true that now so many arbitration centers have been established, but still much is to be done.”
Justice Indu Malhotra, former Judge of the Supreme Court, while chairing the panel discussion, listed the key criteria that a party in an international arbitration looks into to decide the seat of Arbitration, which included neutral place of arbitration, good arbitration regime of the place of arbitration, the pool of arbitrators available, and the infrastructure available to meet the requirements of international arbitration.
Justice Malhotra also stated that the issue of Section 34 of Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 needs to be addressed in India, which can be tackled by creating specialized benches dealing expeditiously with Section 34 and Section 37 applications. Hon’ble Ms. Justice Malhotra also mentioned that enforcement of the awards is the place where India is lacking and that requires serious consideration.
Tushar Mehta, Solicitor General of India, stated that though it is true that the process of enforcement of the arbitral awards is slow, the first delay is in completing the arbitration process itself. He added that India needs specialised benches.
However, he suggested that the country should have separate arbitration courts with specialised judges dealing specifically with S.34 and S.37.
Even enforcement of the awards should be assigned to specialized arbitration courts rather than specialized benches in the regular Civil Courts.
Speaking about India being the hub of arbitration, the SG said the country should focus on having an arbitration city, which should be the hub for international arbitration.
This would help in speedy redressal of the disputes and go a long way in making India as the hub of International Commercial Arbitration, he added.
Manan Kumar Mishra, Senior Advocate and Chairman, Bar Council of India, talked about the context in which BCI passed the decision of allowing the foreign firms to start their practices in India. This was done to help the country in attracting foreign clients.
He mentioned that one of the reasons why India has not become the hub of arbitration is that we are not allowing it to become the hub. There was no entry of foreign firms in this domain which prevented India from being the hub of arbitration. He said that unless the young lawyers are involved with foreign lawyers and law firms, we cannot become a hub of International Arbitration.
He said under continuous legal education like in foreign countries, Rules were being framed by the Bar Council of India, wherein in course of five years, every lawyer will have to undergo 40 days compulsory training, only then their Bar Licenses will be renewed. These rules will be enforced by the end of 2023.
He said he knew the BCI and other State Bar Councils will have to face protests, but it was for the betterment of lawyers, so under the able guidance of the Solicitor General, these rules will be implemented by the end of 2023.
Tejas Karia, Partner and Head Arbitrations, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas mentioned that Arbitration has always been ad-hoc and slowly we are moving towards institutional arbitration. But the problem is that we do not have one prominent institution which can be termed as the premier institute of international arbitration of India.
He said there was difficulty in creating and maintaining consistency across all the centers of international arbitration. Karia said that taking all the institutions together and making a diverse panel of arbitrators, increasing transparency and relying on institutions such as the IDRC would help the country in achieving the dream.
He concluded by saying that the 2019 Amendment, which included Section 11(6A), was a positive step as the enforcement of the same would lead to promoting institutional arbitration in India.
Lastly, to address the issue of delays in the enforcement of arbitral awards, Ratan K Singh, Senior Advocate and International Member, Keating Chambers, London suggested that only training of the judges can solve this problem.
He said training of judges was required at all levels. This also included a mandatory continuing learning programme for practising lawyers, which would enhance their ability, leading to better judges and better arbitrators.
While talking about the factors that were important to choose the seat of arbitration, Singh said that thinking from the perspective of a foreign party, the country did not have any credible international arbitration center. Though we have good quality of arbitrators, the problem lies in the selection of the arbitrators by the institutes. Sh. Singh argued that due consideration shall be given to the expertise of the arbitrators chosen and presently we are far away from reaching that stage where the local institutions of arbitration are credible enough for the foreign parties.
Sumedha Sindhu Rathi, Member-Secretary, Advisory Board, IDRC delivered the Vote of thanks.
The event was organised by Divyansh H Rathi, Hony. Secretary of IDRC along with Members of Advisory Board Sumedha Sindhu Rathi, Riya Rathi, Satish Dahiya, Chitragupt Dagar, Priyanshi Aggarwal and other Team Members of IDRC.
Apart from former judges of Supreme Court, High Courts and Senior Advocates, the IDRC panel arbitrators, leading law firms, the PSUs, members of the Bar association and Law Students attended the conclave.
IDRC is an institutional dispute resolution Center established by not-for-profit organisation “International Dispute Resolution Council”. IDRC is registered with Niti Aayog and empaneled with the Ministry of Law and Justice.
IDRC which is headquartered in Delhi provides state-of-the-art institutional environment for the online and offline resolution of dispute through arbitration, mediation and conciliation as well as expert determination and early neutral evaluation from its cloud-based in-house digital platform and through its affiliates in all major cities in India.
In a short span of time, IDRC has accomplished more than 1000 arbitration proceedings and assisted in numerous International and National Arbitrations presided by retired judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts despite pandemic conditions.
IDRC is an initiative of the Indian Dispute Resolution Council. It is a Not-for-Profit Institutional Arbitration Centre registered with Ministry of Corporate Affairs and NITI Aayog.
IDRC is duly empaneled with Ministry of Law and Justice, Govt of India for providing Arbitration, Mediation and other ADR services to Central-State Govts, PSUs, Departments and Public and Pvt. Limited Companies. IDRC has Cloud based eADR Portal at TheIDRC.com. IDRC has both Online and Offline Arbitration hearing facilities at New Delhi, Mumbai and other major cities.