NEW DELHI: Expressing concern over delay in the forming the Aritration Council of India (ACI), Chief Justice of India Surya Kant on Saturday hoped that a bill in this regard will now come up before Parliament.
Delivering the inaugural address at the Indian Institute of Arbitration and Mediation’s (IIAM) Silver Jubilee ADR Summit on “Reimagining ADR: Innovation, Technology & the Future of Justice”, the CJI said the gap between announcement and implementation was hurting India’s ambition to become a global arbitration hub.
“The Draft Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) Bill, circulated for public consultation in October 2024 on the recommendations of the Viswanathan Committee, remains exactly that, and its new avatar is hopefully now being introduced in Parliament,” he stated.
He also said that the Draft Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) Bill, released for public consultation in October 2024 on the recommendations of the Justice K V Viswanathan Committee, remains pending.He expressed hope that a revised version of the bill would be introduced in Parliament.
CJI Kant pointed out that Indian parties were the third-largest foreign users of the Singapore International Arbitration Centre in both 2024 and 2025. “Singapore’s arbitration success took decades of consistent institutional practice, not a single legislative moment. What we can usefully borrow is not any one country’s statute, but its discipline in implementation,” he said.
Batting for mediation, and cautioning AI, the CJI said its future depends on three things: professionalisation of mediator training and accreditation, greater use of mediation clauses in commercial contracts by businesses, and India’s ratification of the Singapore Convention on Mediation. Turning to artificial intelligence in dispute resolution, he cautioned against over-reliance.
The CJI added that mediation has made its case more quietly than arbitration, through outcomes over argument.