The Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) Bill, 2018 recently received Cabinet approval. The proposed amendments are based on the recommendations of the High Level Committee set up by the Government under the Chairmanship of Justice B.N. Srikrishna, former judge of the Supreme Court of India. The amendments are certainly well thought out, and are geared towards…
Payal Chawla This article was first published in Bar and Bench on 06.06.2018 The one area that the judiciary and Government are remarkably aligned on – is ensuring that India becomes the next arbitral destination. The Supreme Court, in particular, seems to be working at this with a sense of urgency. From a perusal of…
Payal Chawla This article was first published on Bar and Bench on 30.04.2018 Section 27 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (the Act) makes a provision for the arbitral tribunal to seek the assistance of the court in taking evidence. Such assistance can be sought by the tribunal on its own accord, or by…
Payal Chawla Last year, the decision in the matter of Indus Mobile Distribution Pvt. Ltd v. Datawind Innovations Pvt. Ltd. [(2017) 7 SCC 678] was delivered by the Supreme Court. This decision was welcomed from the perspective of bringing quietus to the jurisdiction issue in domestic arbitration, and yet at the same time, criticized inter alia for being in the…
Payal Chawla and Hina Shaheen The appointment of an arbitrator by one party to an arbitration agreement has been a vexed issue. The pre-amended Arbitration & Conciliation Act, 1996 (“Act”) permitted such appointments, with certain limited exceptions. That these unilateral appointments have been the cause of much angst and litigation is not in dispute. The…
Payal Chawla and Aastha Bhardwaj Originally appeared in Bar & Bench, 19.12.2017 As arbitrations enhance in India, so will arbitration claims and their quantum. There will be a consequent rise in arbitration costs, be it legal fees, arbitrators’ fees, security on costs, and/or costs payable by the unsuccessful party. Arbitral costs can be exorbitant, and…
Payal Chawla This article was first published in Bar and Bench on 17.11.2017 In India, while the contracts of indemnity are perhaps the most negotiated clauses in a contract, they are paradoxically the least litigated. The paucity of legal precedence on this subject may be one of the reasons, despite some early pronouncements on the…
Payal Chawla It is common knowledge that an arbitral tribunal is not bound by the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 and the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908. This is enshrined in s.19(1) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (ACA). S.19(1) has sometimes been misunderstood as to its scope and whether the Code and the Evidence…