The early part of this year witnessed a plethora of key decisions from the Apex Court and certain High Courts in the field of arbitration. Amongst the notable developments was the referral of the seminal ruling in Chloro Controls to a larger bench of the Supreme Court for re-examination of the applicability of the 'group of companies' doctrine in Indian arbitral jurisprudence. Established as a binding precedent for almost a decade, regulating non-signatories to the arbitration agreement, the outcome of the reference by the three-judges' bench in the Cox and Kings case is awaited with bated breath.
Addressing various interpretational issues, especially arising post the recent amendments of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 ("Arbitration Act"), several pronouncements of this year contain an erudite exposition of the law governing domestic arbitrations particularly in the areas of challenges to the appointments of arbitrators, scope and ambit of interim reliefs, powers of the arbitral tribunal to award interest, limited examination in cases of references, etc.
Furthermore, in a praiseworthy effort to lend greater impetus to arbitrations in India, the Supreme Court in the case of Shree Vishnu Constructors has asked the Chief Justices of the High Courts to ensure that all pending applications for appointment of arbitrators or substitution of arbitrators and/or change of arbitrators, which are pending for more than one year from the date of filing, are decided expeditiously. The High Courts are following suit.
Through this Arbitration Newsletter, we endeavour to bring to our readers, the key developments that have emerged across the Indian arbitration space. In this second edition of the Newsletter, we detail the major judicial pronouncements of the courts in India from January to July 2022.
We do hope you find this edition of the Newsletter engrossing. We would appreciate any feedback or suggestions that our readers may have on this edition.
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