Arbitration's Unfinished Business: Rethinking Finality, Public Policy, And Judicial Power In India

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Tanisha Sabyasachi Pattanaik, O.P Jindal Global University

ABSTRACT

Despite India's stated commitment to a pro-arbitration, minimal-interference regime, the post-award stage continues to witness expanding judicial engagement, raising fresh questions about the true meaning of arbitral finality today. This paper traces the contemporary trajectory of India's post- award framework under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, examining how the doctrine of public policy has been narrowed on paper but continues to permit substantive review in practice, how arbitrability has steadily expanded the range of disputes courts consider fit for judicial scrutiny, and how recent judicial recognition of a power to modify awards signals a further shift toward supervisory control. It also addresses the unresolved scope of remission provisions, which leave tribunals dependent on courts even for correcting their own awards. Situating these developments against France's comparatively restrained approach to international public policy, the paper argues that India's current framework is structurally, not merely judicially, dependent on courts, since tribunals lose all authority once an award is rendered.

Keywords: Arbitral finality; public policy; patent illegality; 246th Law Commission Report; arbitrability; Section 34(4) remission; judicial modification of awards; functus officio; pro-enforcement regime.

170. ARBITRATION'S UNFINISHED BUSINESS- RETHINKING FINALITY, PUBLIC POLICY, AND JUDICIAL P

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