Chief Justice of India J.S. Khehar on Saturday favoured keeping the government away from the arbitration process to help promote confidence of the business community in international arbitration available here. He hoped that the Narendra Modi government’s ‘Make in India’ initiative would give a fillip to International Commercial Arbitration (ICA) in the country.
Speaking at the inaugural session of the two-day ‘Engaging Asia Arbitration Summit,’ he said: “At the highest level of planning in Indian government, efforts are going on to ensure that neither the government nor its agencies will have any interference with the arbitration process. Government interference will be describable as zero role. The zero interference... will give room for understanding of foreign traders in India that the process is neutral.”
Lauding the efforts of the judiciary and the government to encourage arbitration in India, Justice Khehar said the Supreme Court also adopted the consistent practice of providing arbitrators from a neutral country.
Two key initiatives
“So, in my view, these two initiatives, one by the government of having a zero role and the other by the courts when they appoint arbitrators in an international arbitration from a neutral country, will promote further the confidence of the trading community in international arbitration,” he said.
The former Law Minister and Congress leader Salman Khurshid said India was moving exponentially forward in arbitration but it lacked equipment and software required for the process. He said the attitude of an arbitrator should be different from that of a judge. “There are constraints within which a judge has to operate, particularly in our country where there are constraints not only with requirement to law but heavy load of work that the system has to respond to,” said Mr. Khurshid, a senior advocate.
Taking it to next level
The Chief Justice stressed the need for a collective choice to take arbitration in Asia to a higher level. “I believe that no individual Asian country is capable of shifting to itself the culture of established international arbitrations in the U.K., the U.S. and Europe. We just don’t have it. This, as of now, is an absolute impossibility. Therefore, we must make a collective choice if we want to bring arbitration to Asia,” he said.
He, however, said the future of ICA in Asia must commence from India as it has a pool of talented lawyers and arbitrators. “We must make a collective choice to move to the best possible location in Asia and then to expand arbitration centres into smaller nations with smaller trading activities. My suggestion is India...” Citing reasons for suggesting India to be the centre of arbitration in Asia, he said the country was deeply entrenched in a culture of peace that transcended religion and the businessmen here were known for their secular values as they traded in an environment of diversity.”
He said this would bring flexibility and adaptability, adding that India’s potential for ICA was set to increase as more foreign investment was coming here. “This inflow will necessarily generate an increase in ICA. The total foreign direct investment which India received in the financial year 2015-16 was $5.9 billion,” he added.
