Law minister backs institutional arbitration as part of Indian culture

Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal on Saturday pitched for institutional arbitration, saying it was part of Indian culture after the ONGC chairman urged making arbitration proceedings timely and not "timeless".

Addressing a conference on institutional arbitration here, the minister also said that organisations should be ready to be flexible and rigid, depending on the need of the hour, to ensure that its interests remain protected and it contributes towards nation building.

Meghwal felt that officers should be willing to take risk and not follow the beaten track to ensure financial interests of their organisation.

Meghwal lamented that while arbitration was part of Indian culture, the concept got "disturbed" somewhere and other countries became hub of international arbitration.

He hoped that India will soon emerge as the new hub of international arbitration.

Speaking on the occasion, ONGC Chairman Arun Kumar Singh said time is money, and hence there was a need to make the procedure of arbitration timely and not "timeless".

He said settlement of commercial disputes in a time-bound manner was quintessential for the business ecosystem.

He also felt that there was a need to make arbitration "more corporate and less legal".

Singh said disputes largely arise out of three reasons: executives being excessively conservative who pass the buck to save their skin; excessive optimism of vendors who take contracts at low bids and subsequently fail to complete the job and create disputes to wriggle out of the situation; and rigidity in contracts, which make completing tasks difficult.

Law Secretary Anju Rathi Rana said the government has been consistently trying to make arbitration and mediation processes faster and easier.

She recalled a recent directive from the Department of Legal Affairs, which pushes for reducing judicial interventions and using institutional and not ad hoc arbitration.

The chairman of India International Arbitration Centre, Justice (retd) Hemant Gupta, said the mindset has to change for parties to go for institutional arbitration, rather than an ad hoc system to settle commercial disputes.

He said people will have to choose institutional arbitration to understand its benefits over court-appointed arbitration.