Centre panel for arbitration law reforms to have first meeting on June 20

The committee will submit its recommendations to the government within a period of 30 days

The first meeting of the expert panel set up by the Centre and led by former law secretary T K Vishwanathan to recommend reforms to the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 will have its first meeting on June 20.

The panel will have 15 other members.

“The prime reason of the exercise is guided with a view to reduce court intervention in the whole process to the minimum and make arbitration a truly party-driven process, cost-effective, and with time-bound finality being attached to the award,” the office memorandum issued by the law and justice ministry said.

The committee will submit its recommendations to the government within 30 days.

According to the memorandum, the exercise (of forming the panel) is to examine the working of the Act, suggest solutions to limit the requirement for parties to seek judicial intervention by approaching the court, and address the issue of expeditious attribution of finality to the award.

“It has, therefore, been decided to constitute a committee of experts, to inter alia examine the extant law as per the terms of reference and prepare a draft of the proposed amendments and make other recommendations to the government,” the memorandum said.

The Ministry of Law & Justice, in January 2017, constituted a High-Level Committee to review the Institutionalisation of Arbitration Mechanism under the chairmanship of retired Supreme Court justice BN Srikrishna.

One of the primary purposes of this exercise was to recommend reforms aimed at improving institutional arbitration in India. The Committee submitted its report (the Report) in July 2017.

The Legislature then inserted Part 1A(Arbitration Council of India – Sections 43A to 43M) by the Arbitration & Conciliation (Amendment) Act, 2019 on August 9, 2019. Sections 43A – 43M sets out the scheme of establishment of an Arbitration Council of India along the lines recommended by the Committee. It provides for the composition of the Council, duties, and functions of the Council, general norms for grading of arbitral institutions, norms for accreditation of arbitrators, etc.

Pursuant to the same, the Ministry of Law & Justice published certain draft rules for public comments on 12th February 2020. However, to date, after nearly 2 years since the 2019 Amendment, Part 1A (Sections 43-43M) has not been notified.