COURT- APPOINTED ARBITRATORS SHOULD BE REGULATED TO AVOID TACTICS OF MONEY-MINTING

Bureau,Odishabarta

Delhi:It is quite usual that retired judges of higher courts are appointed arbitrators by courts, giving them much-much more income than they earn while their being judges in higher courts. There are reports that these arbitrators charge exorbitantly for each hearing. Even if all the concerned parties mutually agree for adjournment much before date of hearing, arbitrators insist on sending representation for adjournment on fixed date of hearing so that they may forcibly charge for a hearing held just for seeking adjournment. An RTI response dated 24.12.2019 from Department of Legal Affairs has revealed that central government is not considering any reforms to prevent such anti-public practice of arbitrators.

The Arbitration and Conciliation Act 1996 should be amended to prevent such money-minting tactics of arbitrators. Complete details of arbitration-fees earned by an arbitrator case-wise in a year mentioning also number of hearings conducted in each case should be made public by putting all details on websites of courts having appointed them arbitrators. There must be some maximum reasonable amount fixed for an arbitrator for a particular case. Money earned by way of arbitration must not exceed what arbitrators earned before retirement.

However maximum time-limit for withholding arbitration-award after completion of hearing has recently been fixed as one year (except for international awards) by amending the Arbitration and Conciliation Act 1996 where earlier there was no such limit. But even one-year period for arbitration-award is too much which should be maximum three months.

Input;Ms.Madhu