LS passes International Arbitration Center Bill to make India its hub

The Lok Sabha Friday passed a bill to set up a new international arbitration centre here with an aim to make India its hub. The New Delhi International Arbitration Centre Bill seeks to establish an independent and autonomous regime for institutionalised arbitration and for acquisition and transfer of undertakings of the International Centre of Alternative Resolution.

Speaking on the bill in the lower house, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the government wants to develop it into a world-class arbitration centre and India as the hub of international arbitration. The bill said the International Centre for Alternative Dispute Resolution (ICADR), which works under the aegis of the Supreme Court, has not been able to actively engage and embrace developments in the arbitration ecosystem.

The new body will take over the undertakings of the ICADR which was set up in 1995. The chief justice of India is the ex-officio chairperson of the ICADR, while former law minister H R Bhardwaj is the patron of the institution.

According to the bill, with a view to promote institutional arbitration and make India its hub, a high-level committee headed by Justice B N Srikrishna, a former Supreme Court judge, was constituted to identify the roadblocks in the development of institutional arbitration.

The committee had recommended that ICADR should be taken over with complete revamp of its governance structure to include only experts of repute who can lend credibility and respectability to the institution and be re-branded as a centre of national importance to highlight its character as a flagship arbitral institution.

(With inputs from agencies.)