Need to streamline legal system for prompt dispute resolution:

Ruing the huge expenditure that the government has to incur on international arbitration cases, Law Minister DV Sadananda Gowda today stressed on the need for streamlining India's legal and judicial system for speedy resolution of commercial disputes.
He also said the government will have to evolve new principles and lay down new norms to deal with the new problems that emerge in a highly-industrialised economy.
The minister hoped that amendments in the Arbitration Act and passage of a law to establish commercial benches in high courts will help improve India's ease-of-doing-business ranking.
At a conference on the 'Effects and Implications of Recent Alternative Dispute Resolution and Commercial Courts Laws', organised by an industry body, Gowda said that delay in legal procedures and want of timely disposal of investment-related cases lead to international arbitration which involves "huge expenditure" out of the state exchequer.

"Hence, streamlining our legal and judicial system to ensure speedy resolution of commercial disputes is the need and a necessary requirement," he said.
The minister hoped that recent amendments to the arbitration law and the creation of commercial benches in high courts will help solve the problem.

Amendments to the arbitration law and the new statute on commercial benches came into force in December last year.
Law is a "living organ" and "has to grow" to satisfy the needs of a fast-changing society and to keep abreast of the economic developments taking place in the country, he said.
Speaking on the occasion, former Law Minister HR Bhardwaj

credited the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for pushing for the sorting of commercial disputes through out-of-court settlements using the alternative dispute resolution mechanism.
"But nobody wants to settle arbitration cases... Judges (retired judges who preside as arbitrators) also prolong proceedings," he lamented.
He supported the idea of having a separate Bar to deal with commercial cases.
Bhardwaj also batted for opening India's legal sector to foreign firms saying it will reduce the cost of international arbitration and allow Indian legal professionals to earn more.
In a democratic system, the Bar cannot be allowed to control the litigation system, he said, adding that the Bar in India is "strictly monopolistic".

Law Secretary PK Malhotra said that while amending the arbitration law, the government has used a "carrot and stick policy" by limiting to one year the time by which an arbitrator has to deliver the verdict.
He suggested that arbitrators should not take up more than 20 cases to ensure that they are able to concentrate on the work. He said when they take up as many as 70 cases, they are unable to concentrate and deliver early verdicts.