Take serious look at arbitration regime, make change to new Bill
SC to govt
This story was originally published at 18:38 IST on 2 May 2025
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NEW DELHI – The Supreme Court on Friday urged the Ministry of Law and Justice to take a serious look at the arbitration regime in the country and bring about necessary changes in the Arbitration and Conciliation Bill, 2024. The top court observed that even after almost 30 years when the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 had come into force, there were some procedural issues that continued to trouble the arbitration regime in India.
The apex court noted that the 1996 Act and 2024 Bill were silent on the power of a court or arbitral tribunal to join or implead a party to the arbitration proceedings. "Unfortunately, even the new Bill has taken no steps whatsoever, for ameliorating the position of law as regards the power of impleadment or joinder of an arbitral tribunal," said the court. What is expressly missing in the 1996 Act is still missing in the 2024 Bill, despite a catena of decisions of the apex court as well as the various high courts, highlighting the need for statutory recognition of such power in order to obviate all possibilities of confusion, said a bench of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and R. Mahadevan.
The top court upheld an arbitral tribunal's order to join ASF Buildtech Pvt Ltd. and ASF Insignia SEZ Pvt. as the parties in an arbitration case involving Shapoorji Pallonji & Co. Pvt. Ltd. The case has genesis from Black Canyon SEZ Pvt. Ltd. initiating arbitration proceedings against Shapoorji Pallonji. In its counterclaims before the arbitrator, Shapoorji Pallonji said that Black Canyon, ASF Insignia and ASF Buildtech being a part of the ASF Group, the latter two companies should be joined as parties in the proceedings. Opposing this, ASF Buildtech and ASF Insignia had said that being a non-signatory to the arbitration agreement, they could not have been impleaded in the array of parties and asked to join the arbitration proceedings. End
Reported by Surya Tripathi
Edited by Vandana Hingorani
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