The Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996

A flat buyer in Kharghar and a builder fall out over a delayed possession date. Both know that a civil suit in Mumbai can run for years. Their agreement, however, has a clause saying any dispute will go to a private decision-maker of their own choosing, whose ruling a court will treat almost like its own decree. How does the law let two private parties build their own court, and how far will a real court stay out of the way? The Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 answers both questions, and it also gives a second, gentler route called conciliation.

In two minutes

The 1996 Act lets parties take a dispute to a private arbitral tribunal whose award binds them and is enforced like a court decree (Part I), and also lets them settle through a conciliator whose signed settlement has the status of an award on agreed terms (Part III), with courts allowed to step in only where the Act says so.

The rest of this chapter

The full explanation, the cheat sheet, every previous-year question at every mark weight, the quiz and the answer skeletons are part of Practical Training – II: Alternate Dispute Resolution on LexBlox Semester. Sign in to unlock the subject, or read Module 1 of Legal Language and Writing free.