190401 ELP Arbitration Weekly Update

In this update we analyse the Supreme Court’s recent judgment in Union of India and Ors. v. Parmar Construction Company and Ors.In deciding this case, the Supreme Court carried out a study of a catena of judgments to reiterate and clarify the position on law on various interconnected issues.The Supreme Court concluded that:

i. The Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) Act, 2015 is applicable only to arbitration proceedings which are initiated after its introduction. It would be immaterial whether an application for appointment of an arbitrator remained pending before a court when the amendment was introduced and the application was adjudicated upon thereafter;

ii. Whether a no-claim certificate is submitted by a contractor voluntarily or under duress would have to be examined on a case-to-case basis; and

iii. In cases of applications for appointment of arbitrators, courts must first attempt to follow any procedure agreed to by the parties in the arbitration agreement, and only if that fails should they resort to appointing an arbitrator beyond the prescribed criteria.