Arbitration Act likely to be amended: Moily

Move to stop inordinate delay

 
Speaking after inaugurating an ‘Alternate Dispute Resolution Cell’ here, the minister said that inordinate delay in arbitration has made the government to contemplate bringing in an amendment to the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996.

“A committee will be constituted to look into causes for the delay. As regards to Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), it is not intended to replace litigation, but reduce increasing pendency of number of cases in courts. Apart from being cost effective and less time consuming, ADR is a method in which both the petitioner and respondent stand to gain as the grievances are resolved in a conciliatory manner. It is the need of the hour," Moily said.

The law minister further said that 52,592 cases are pending in the Supreme court as on June 30, 2009 and 71,680 cases and 49,417 cases pending in the Allahabad and Kolkata High Courts respectively.

“It (ADR) should become a movement. For this, increased awareness on legal literacy is needed and we have to adopt methods to do that," the law minister added. Governor of Karnataka, H R Bharadwaj was also present on the occasion.