How Arbitration Friendly Is India, Really? (with Reference To Arbitrability Of Fraud)

"The authors are advocates . practicing before the Hon'ble High Court of Delhi. Ms. Simran Brar is a Partner and Ms. Deveshi Mishra and Ms. Anjali Dwivedi are Associates at Karanjawala & Co."

In every society with a modern judicial system; fraud is perceived to be a 'criminal' rather than a civil offence, albeit it could have both criminal and civil consequences, which then leads the remedy to be two-fold – initiation of criminal as well as civil remedies/litigations.

Disputes arising on account of criminal offences remain outside the ambit of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996. In this backdrop, we examine as to how the scope of an Arbitral Tribunal has expanded or contracted over the years with specific reference to law/statutes and jurisprudence when an allegation of fraud is being made by either party in civil and commercial arbitration cases.