Amended arbitration law to cut down costs, delays: Gowda

A string of amendments to the arbitration law to end delays and eliminate high costs in a bid to provide ease of doing business is being worked out by the government which is also finalising a national policy to cut down on litigation.
Initial plans to bring out an ordinance to quicken things was dropped and instead a draft of the amended law could come up shortly before the Cabinet so that it can be taken up in the Monsoon session of Parliament, according to Law Minister D V Sadananda Gowda.
He said the government also wants to shed the tag of being the single biggest litigant in various courts in the country. Law Ministry's informal estimates suggest government is a litigant in 46 per cent of the cases in higher judiciary.

Sending out a signal to international business community that prolonged arbitration proceedings in India will soon become a thing of past, Gowda told PTI in an interview that "stringent" amendments have been proposed to the Arbitration law to end proceedings within a stipulated period and very less intervention by courts.
"Even the fee structure of the (presiding arbitrator) will be decided in the first sitting itself... Now everybody apprehends that arbitration case in India will prolong for years... It will go on for a decade.
"So, now we want to see that it should be within the stipulated period and even interference of the courts should be very minimum, only unless there are certain legal problems. Fee structure is an important area because almost all the arbitrators used to prolong the cases simply for no reason. So if the fees is fixed, they will dispose of the case," Gowda said.