SC's struggles with 'unruly horse' of public policy in foreign awards

The Nafed-Alimenta judgment shows it might perhaps be time for Parliament to intervene and clarify the notion of public policy in the context of foreign arbitral awards

The Supreme Court, in its recent judgment in the case of Nafed vs Alimenta SA, refused to enforce a foreign arbitral award in a case dealing with groundnut export in the 1980s. In dealing with an old case when India was a closed economy, it seems to have unintentionally pushed our law back by a few decades, given that it goes against the grain of settled principles previously enunciated by the Supreme Court on enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards. The facts of each of the cases dealt with by the apex court would differ, but the legal principles seem to