Johana George, Government Law College, Thrissur
Introduction
The three judge bench of R F Nariman, Aniruddha Bose, and Ramasubramanian held on 27th November 2019 that Section 87 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 must be struck down, it being manifestly arbitrary under Article 14 of the Indian Constitution. This article intends to have a journey through the background of origin, origin and end of Section 87 through different case laws of timeline 2015 to 2019.
Background
Position prior to 2015 Amendment
Before the amendment of Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (hereinafter called “Act”) in 2015, Section 36 had stated that the arbitral award could be enforced as if it were a decree of the Court (as per the Civil Procedure Code, 1908) only if:
Limitation period for making an application to set aside the arbitral award under Section 34 (i.e., 3 months from receiving the arbitral award or 3 months from disposing of the Section 33 application for correction/interpretation of arbitral award) is elapsed; or
Application under Section 34 has been made and refused/dismissed
