Chief Justice of India Surya Kant has called for a fundamental recalibration of India’s arbitration ecosystem, urging arbitral institutions and practitioners to develop a credible architecture of self-regulation rather than await the operationalisation of a statutory regulator.
Addressing the India ADR Week 2026 organised by the Mumbai Centre for International Arbitration (MCIA) at The Imperial, New Delhi, the CJI proposed the creation of a cross-institutional public disclosure register for arbitrators, envisaging a transparent repository of professional information that could enable parties and counsel to make informed choices while constituting arbitral tribunals.
Justice Surya Kant said India’s institutional arbitration landscape had made significant strides, but its aspiration to emerge as a preferred international arbitral seat would depend not merely upon legislative reform but upon the predictability, efficiency and institutional credibility of the arbitral process.
Reflecting on the deliberations during the conference, which covered interim relief in construction disputes, transnational issue estoppel, regulation of energy contracts and arbitral ethics, the CJI identified certainty and procedural efficiency as the principal value propositions of arbitration.
According to him, parties invoking arbitration do not approach the process with an entitlement to a predetermined outcome. What they legitimately expect, however, is procedural certainty—clarity regarding the likely duration of proceedings, the constitution and competence of the tribunal, and the professional standards to which the adjudicatory process will be subjected.
He underscored that procedural delay can itself become antithetical to the arbitral bargain. In construction disputes, for instance, applications for interim monetary relief may remain pending for periods exceeding the commercial life of the underlying contractual obligation. Such delays, he cautioned, risk transforming what is intended to be ancillary relief into a substantive source of commercial prejudice.
The CJI similarly highlighted the growing complexity of cross-border arbitration, stressing that an international dispute should not entail repetitive adjudication of identical or substantially overlapping issues. The principle of transnational procedural economy, he suggested, assumes increasing importance as arbitration becomes more deeply integrated with multi-jurisdictional commercial disputes.
Turning to the energy sector, Justice Surya Kant noted that arbitral tribunals are increasingly confronted with disputes in which alleged contractual breaches intersect with sovereign policy decisions and regulatory interventions. Such disputes, he indicated, demand jurisprudential innovation and sector-sensitive adjudication rather than the mechanical transplantation of conventional contractual templates.
The most significant portion of the CJI’s address concerned the long-standing question of professional regulation and accountability of arbitrators.
Referring to the statutory framework providing for the Arbitration Council of India, Justice Surya Kant pointed out that the legislation establishing the proposed regulatory architecture was enacted in 2019, yet the Council has not become operational even after more than six years.
Against this backdrop, he questioned whether India’s arbitration community should continue to defer the development of professional standards to statutory intervention.
Drawing a doctrinal distinction between the judicial office and arbitral adjudication, the CJI observed that judges exercise sovereign adjudicatory authority, whereas arbitrators derive their jurisdiction from the consensual mandate of the parties.
That distinction, he said, does not dilute the obligation of arbitrators to adhere to rigorous standards of independence, impartiality and professional conduct. Rather, the consensual foundation of arbitral jurisdiction makes institutional trust and disclosure-based accountability central to the legitimacy of the process.
Justice Surya Kant consequently advocated the establishment of a uniform, cross-institutional disclosure architecture under which arbitrators handling India-seated proceedings would furnish standardised and comparable information relating to potential conflicts of interest, existing tribunal appointments, sitting load, average time taken to render awards and areas of demonstrated subje
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