Post-award Interim Relief To An Unsuccessful Party: How Section 9 Relief Can Reshape High-value Commercial Arbitrations?

Interim relief plays a vital role in the arbitration process. It can preserve assets, secure disputed sums, restrain the invocation of bank guarantees, or otherwise maintain the status quo to help protect the subject matter of a dispute and prevent an eventual award from becoming fruitless.

This relief has long been available to all parties under Section 9 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (Act); however, the right of an unsuccessful party to avail such relief post-award has remained unsettled. In a recent decision in Home Care Retail Marts Pvt Ltd v. Haresh N Sanghavi,¹ the Supreme Court settled the law, holding that an unsuccessful party can also seek post-award interim relief under Section 9, relying on the unqualified language of the provision. Importantly, the ruling dictates a markedly higher threshold for the grant of interim relief in such cases.