Chennai: Justice T S Sivagnanam of the Madras High Court called for institutionalising arbitration procedures at an event held in city.
He also inaugurated the Centre for Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) at the premises of The Southern India Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SICCI), here on Monday.
Speaking at the event, SICCI President, R Ganapathi said, “Recently, a new Bill – Arbitration & Conciliation Amendment Bill, 2018′ had proposed to formulate Arbitration Council of India (ACI) to grade arbitration institution and enlist arbitrators in India. The SICCI Centre for ADR was created on the backdrop of the bill and it will formulate rules tailor-made for businesses.”
He said, “India has 31 million cases pending in various courts. Out of this, 26 per cent of the cases are more than five years old. It has been estimated that 12 million Indians await trial in criminal cases throughout the country. On an average, it takes 20 years for a real estate or land dispute to be resolved.”
Highlighting on the need for arbitration centres such as SICCI’s ADR, he said, “The dispute resolution process has a huge impact on the Indian economy and global perception on doing business in India. This is clearly indicated by World Bank rating on Ease Of Doing Business 2016 which has ranked India 131 out of 189 countries on how easy it is for private companies to follow regulations. The study notes that India takes as much as 1,420 days and 39.6 per cent of the claim value for dispute resolution.”
“This is higher than that of OECD countries as well as that of South Asias regional averages,” he added.
Giving more light on the the development of the arbitration process in the country, he said, “Twenty years back arbitration was never thought of in India. Even though there was an arbitration clause, businesses chose to have arbitration done outside the country. That was the trend. Now things have changed after section 89 of the code of civil procedure mandated that every judicial procedure should go through the procedure of ADR.”
The Judge stressed on the need for institutionalising the arbitration procedures and congratulated SICCI for Centre for ADR here in Chennai in close proximity to the Madras High Court.