INTRODUCTION
Section 9 (3) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996
(Act) was inserted by the Arbitration and
Conciliation (Amendment) Act, 2015. This amendment brought
significant changes to Section 9 of the Act which deals with
granting interim reliefs by courts. Post the 2015 amendment, the
court's powers to grant interim reliefs, once the arbitral
tribunal has been constituted, has been curtailed. Section 9 (3) of
the Act as inserted by the 2015 amendment provides that the court
shall not entertain an application under Section 9 (1)
unless it finds that circumstances exist which may render the
remedy provided under Section 17 inefficacious.
Prior to the 2015 amendment, parties were at liberty to approach
courts to seek interim relief at any time i.e., before the
commencement of the arbitration proceedings, during the arbitration
proceedings, or at any time after making of the award but before it
was enforced. Even though the arbitral tribunal had powers to
