The New Law seeks to achieve the very goals for which Arbitration itself was conceived, i.e., to achieve speedy, inexpensive, and effective solutions to disputes. However, overtime, arbitration proceedings have become susceptible to the same ailments which afflict normal legal processes. This has largely been due to the tendency of one or the other party to take recourse to every conceivable judicial measure to frustrate the arbitration proceedings. The Act seeks to combat this trend by drastically curtailing the power of courts to interfere in the various stages of the arbitration proceedings. In this respect, some of its provisions are said to be an improvement upon those contained in the UNCITRAL model.

This treatise covers the subject exhaustively as it is a commentary on both the new and the old legal regime. Written in a systematic manner, it deals with both foreign and Indian case law at length. Since there is a dearth of authoritative material on the New Law, it is bound to be of great use to all those who are concerned with methods of Alternative Dispute Resolution. Moreover, Part ‘B’ of the Book, which deals with the old legislation will also be of tremendous utility since the proceedings initiated before 25-1-1996 continue to be governed by the Arbitration Act, 1940.