Indian Law Lab

I. INTRODUCTION The very essence of Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (hereinafter ‘Arbitration Act’), is to boil down the supervisory role of courts in the arbitral process. The Arbitration Act intended to reduce the scope of judicial interference with an arbitral award as well. The ambit of courts power is merely restricted to set aside the arbitral award on certain grounds specified in the Arbitration Act. It is blasphemous to use other enactments or rules to set aside the arbitral award. The court cannot act as an appellate authority over and above interfere on merits of an arbitral award (except ‘public policy’ issues). The arbitral award can ‘only’ be set aside by filing an application for setting aside the arbitral award in accordance with sub-sections (2), (2A) and (3) of Section 34 of the Arbitration Act. The application of setting aside arbitral award (including interim award) is dealt in chapter VII of the Arbitration Act under the head ‘Recourse Against Arbitral A...