The Supreme Court has held that a foreign arbitration award can be enforced in this country without going through separate decree and execution proceedings.
Both the proceedings can be combined as one under the new law, the court said in Fuerst Day Lawson Ltd vs Jindal Exports Ltd recently.
The judgment also stated that the new arbitration law came into force when the first ordinance was promulgated on January 25, 1996 and not when the Act was notified on August 22 of the same year.
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The bench had to decide the exact date on which the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 came into force. The procedure for enforcing foreign awards will depend on whether the award was passed before or after the coming into force of the new law.
There was one viewpoint that the new law came into force only when the Act was notified on August 22, 1996. The other view was that it had come into force in January when the first ordinance was promulgated.
The same ordinance was re-promulgated twice more and then the Act was passed in identical terms. The court has now held that the ordinance and Act, being identical, can be deemed to have come into force on January 25. As a result, the new fast-track procedure will be effective from that date.
In this case, certain disputes cropped up in the implementation of an agreement under which the Indian company was to supply goods to the foreign company.
The dispute went in for arbitration before the International General Produce Association. It allowed the claim of the foreign company. An appeal filed by the Indian company before the Queen