Arbitration Bill 2018: Missed opportunity to design promising framework

It is quintessential that a certain, strict timeline ought to be enforced in India

The arbitration landscape in India has witnessed a surge of legislative activism since the first amendment to the Arbitration and Conciliation (A&C) Act, 1996, in 2015. On August 7 this year, the Lok Sabha passed the A&C Amendment Bill, 2018, seeking to make India an “international hub for domestic and international commercial arbitration”. 

Despite the prominence of the word “international”, does the Bill appear to sub-serve its purpose of being a momentous legislation on this front? Barely so. The overhaul misses an opportunity to extend a sufficiently promising framework to parties desiring to select India as the seat of arbitration.