Bill providing for speedy disposal of arbitration cases in LS

Government today moved in Lok Sabha a bill that provides for speedy disposal of arbitration cases and improvement in the 'ease of doing business' in India.
Moving the the Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) Bill, 2015 for consideration and passage, Law Minister D V Sadananda Gowda described it as another landmark bill before the Parliament.
It would help in ensuring "user-friendly and cost-effective" of arbitration process as well as speedy disposal of cases, he said.
The changes would improve the ease of doing business and help India climb in the World Bank's rankings related to enforcement of contractual obligations.
According to the Minister, urgent steps are needed to address the issues of large pendency of cases and the slow process of arbitration.

The bill is aimed at amending a law on arbitration for speedy settlement of high value business disputes. It also seeks to replace an ordinance promulgated in October.

The discussion on the Bill will be taken up tomorrow.
For speedy settlement of commercial disputes, the Cabinet had in August cleared the bill to amend the Arbitration Act 1996 to fix a timeline for arbitrators to resolve cases.
Under the proposed amendments to the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, an arbitrator will have to settle a case within 18 months.
However, after the completion of 12 months, certain restrictions will be put in place to ensure that the arbitration case does not linger on.

The Bill also proposes to insert a provision for fast track procedure for conducting arbitration and parties to the dispute may agree that their dispute be resolved through fast track procedure.
Award in such cases shall be given in 6 months period.
A new provision to provide that application to challenge the award is to be disposed of by the court within one year.
N K Premachandran (RSP) raised a few issues over the bill, saying it should have been tabled in Rajya Sabha rather than the Lower House.
Explaining the rationale, he said the Bill was originally tabled in Rajya Sabha in 2003 and following recommendation from the Standing Committee it was withdrawn in 2005. So as propriety issue, it should have been tabled in the Rajya Sabha, he said.

He also raised concerns over some of the clauses of the Bill including Clause 18.