Arbitration Clauses In Online Contracts: Enforceability Under Indian Law
- IJLLR Journal
- 60 minutes ago
- 1 min read
Garvit Mathur, Associate at Seth Associates
ABSTRACT
Most people who shop, stream, or sign up for an app online never read the contract they are agreeing to. Buried inside that contract is often an arbitration clause, a term that decides where and how any future dispute will be resolved, long before any dispute exists. This article looks at whether such clauses can actually be enforced under Indian law, working through the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, the Information Technology Act, 2000, the Indian Contract Act, 1872, and the Consumer Protection Act, 2019. The central argument is that the law works reasonably well when both sides are businesses, but falls short when one side is an ordinary consumer who clicked 'I Agree' without any real chance to understand what they were giving up. Courts have stretched the meaning of consent to cover clicks and continued use of a website, but a click is not the same as informed agreement, and the law has not fully grappled with that gap. The article proposes three changes: a requirement that arbitration clauses be shown clearly rather than buried in a linked document, a direct statutory duty on platforms to tell consumers about their right to approach a consumer forum regardless of any arbitration clause, and minimum standards for the online platforms that are meant to resolve these disputes. None of these changes would be radical. They would simply make the 'I Agree' button mean what it claims to mean.
Keywords: Arbitration Clause; Online Contracts; Enforceability; Indian Law; Standard Form Contracts; Consumer Protection; Online Dispute Resolution.
