Hands-Off! Why Anti-Arbitration Injunction Suits Ought To Be Relegated To History

Introduction

Popularity of arbitration as a dispute resolution mechanism can be traced to parties' aversion to long drawn Court driven adjudication. Unfortunately, we routinely come across instances where recalcitrant parties mischievously attempt to deviate from their bargained choice of adjudicatory forum. A popular tactic employed in the past to scuttle arbitral proceedings were anti-arbitration injunction suits.

In this post, we argue that the construct of the [Indian] Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 ("Act") coupled with the Indian Courts' strong pro-arbitration stance should relegate anti-arbitration injunction suits, especially for India seated arbitrations, to history. As regards foreign seated arbitrations, we explore the extremely limited lens through which Indian Courts ought to consider such suits and defences, if any, available to parties.