The President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee inaugurated a Global Conference on ‘National Initiative towards strengthening Arbitration and Enforcement in India’ in New Delhi today (October 21, 2016).
Speaking on the occasion, the President said that while India has the basic legal and physical infrastructure to support international arbitrations, we need basic institutional reforms to strengthen our arbitration framework. Three institutions are particularly critical for strengthening arbitration in India arbitral institutions, judiciary and the government.
The President said that it was unfortunate that unlike advanced jurisdictions, institutional arbitration is still not widespread in India. Ad hoc arbitration is the norm. Although domestic arbitral institutions have come up, there is a huge untapped potential for growth of institutional arbitration in India. Both domestic and international arbitral institutions have to play a proactive role in shaping this market. He said that the Conference would provide an excellent platform to debate the pros and cons of critical institutional reforms as well as potential strategies to implement them at ground level taking in account the interests of all stakeholders.
