The Supreme Court on Friday sought the Centre’s response on whether it was considering enacting a law to govern arbitration. A three-judge bench of CJI Bobde, Justice Bopanna, and Justice Ramasubramanian was hearing a petition by the Youth Bar Association of India (YBAI) seeking directions or directions for compulsory pre-litigation arbitration across the country. During the hearing on Friday, the bench said that it wanted to know the center’s response to the scheduled petition. The bench further noted that it has been learned that the union is considering enacting some legislation which would force a decree for an arbitration agreement.
SG Mehta sought time to answer the court’s question. The bench gave him time and decided to hear the case next week
Senior advocate Datar appeared for an intervening organization, which was said to be conducting extensive mediation for the World Bank and the United States. The bench allowed the intervention. The present plea has sought to formulate a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), which will ensure that parties inevitably engage in arbitration proceedings in the pre-litigation phase to deal with the problem of pendency of cases.
