Chief Justice of India JS Khehar on Saturday strongly favoured keeping the Government away from the arbitration process to help promote confidence of the business community in international arbitration available here.
He hoped that the Narendra Modi Government’s ‘Make in India’ initiative would give a fillip to International Commercial Arbitration (ICA) in the country.
Speaking at the inaugural session of the two-day ‘Engaging Asia Arbitration Summit’, the CJI said, “At the highest level of planning in Indian Government, efforts are going on that neither Government nor its agencies will have any interference with the arbitral process. Government interference will be describable as zero role.
“The zero interference in ICA will give room for understanding of foreign traders in India that the process is neutral. These initiatives will provide a great sense of confidence and trust to all those involved in ICA,” he said.
lauding the efforts of judiciary and the Government to encourage arbitration in India, Justice Khehar said the Supreme Court has also adopted a consistent practice of providing arbitrators from a neutral country.
“So in my view, these two initiatives, one by Government of having a zero role and the other by the courts when they appoint arbitrators in an international arbitration from a neutral country, will promote further the confidence of the trading community in international arbitration,” he said.
Sharing his views, former law Minister and Congress leader Salman Khurshid said that India is moving exponentially forward in arbitration but it lacks equipment, hardware and software required for the process.
He said it is important that the attitude of an arbitrator is different from that of a judge.
The Chief Justice stressed on the need for a collective choice to take arbitration in Asia to a higher level. “I believe that no individual Asian country is capable of shifting to itself the culture of established international arbitrations in the UK, USA and Europe. We just don’t have it. This as of now, is an absolute impossibility. Therefore, we must make a collective choice if we want to bring arbitration to Asia,” he said.
He, however, said that the future of ICA in Asia must commence from India as it has a pool of talented lawyers and arbitrators.