Harmony amidst Disharmony

Over the last hundred years, the law of arbitration in India has undergone a sea change. The present Arbitration Series – Volume 1 contains Fali S. Nariman’s exposition, along with his expert comments, on the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (updated by the Parliament in 2015 and amended again in July 2019). It includes citations of all relevant and binding case laws. The novelty of the 1996 Act is in its framework―it is divided into four distinct and independent parts. Part I contains an adaptation of most of the provisions of the UNCITRAL Model Law of 1985, governing domestic arbitration (including “International Commercial Arbitration”) and where the place of arbitration is in India. Along with it is Part IA (added only in August 2019) which contains detailed provision for the setting up of an Arbitration Council of India, entrusted primarily with the task of grading arbitral institutions and accrediting arbitrators. Part II sets out (in statute-form) material provisions of the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Awards 1958, to which India has been an original signatory ever since 1960. Part III of the Act (conciliation) reproduces, almost verbatim, the provisions of the UNCITRAL Rules of Conciliation of 1980. The last part of the Act―Part IV―deals with Supplemental Provisions; but attached to the Act are now as many as eight Schedules which form an integral part of the law.