why are new amendments suggested by Supreme Court on party nomination
Answers
The Union Cabinet recently issued a press release for the Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) Bill, 2018 (“2018 Bill”). The amendments which, when passed will apply to the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (“Act”) are pursuant to the Srikrishna Committee Report[1] released in July, 2017 (“Report”), recommending further amendments on the back of the 2015 amendments, primarily to improve on or clarify various provisions.
Key amendments approved include the following:
Arbitration Council of India
The Report recommended the creation of an independent body to accredit arbitral institutions and arbitrators as a number of stakeholders interviewed were disenchanted with the existing arbitral facilities in India. The recommendation has been accepted and an independent body will be set up, namely, the Arbitration Council of India to enable formal evaluation and accreditation. This Council will frame norms for alternate dispute resolution and evolve professional guidelines. This is a positive step to ensure the quality of arbitral institutions. Though India has several arbitral institutions, few apart from the Mumbai Centre for International Arbitration are recognized as having the expertise to administer multi-party international arbitrations.
The Council will also maintain an electronic depository of arbitral awards that can be used to analyse how the jurisprudence has evolved. This is a welcome move. Many international institutions release yearbooks that publish excerpts of awards and this repository will help develop the jurisprudence in India.
The chairperson of the Council will be a retired Supreme or High Court judge or “any eminent person”, and include academics, Government nominees etc. The Report had, however, advised that the Council should be autonomous of any Governmental involvement. This is pertinent since in arbitrations involving the Government as a party, accreditation of arbitrators by Government nominees would bring in conflict of interest issues. It would be good for the 2018 Bill to consider this. Pursuant to the Report, the New Delhi International Arbitration Centre Bill, 2018 was introduced in Lok Sabha in January, 2018 for establishing an arbitration institution, a chamber of arbitration for empaneling arbitrators, a training academy for arbitration and a research centre.