Law Minister D V Sadananda Gowda today said the Centre is planning to amend Arbitration and Conciliation Act in next parliament session to make the country an International hub for Arbitration.
He said that in order to achieve the objective to make the country hub for arbitration certain basic system has to put in place like reducing the time taken in deciding the disputes and certain modification of the process adopted and legal sanctity to such process.
“One of the very important objective of our government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to make India an International hub for arbitration. It can happen only when certain basic system is put in place,” he said in his address at a felicitation function at Bar Council of India.
“We are thinking of bringing certain amendments to the arbitration act as early as possible, most likely by next session, we will be bringing amendments to the Arbitration Act.
“The benefit of becoming international hub for arbitration is that it can bring several opportunities to lawyers of the country either by becoming the panel lawyers or by becoming part of arbitration process and the potential financial benefits are much higher than in domestic cases,” he said.
The Law Minister said government was making “concentrated efforts” to increase numbers of courts and bringing amendments to various Acts to reduce the time consumed in deciding petty cases by the judiciary.
Attorney General Mukul Rohatagi asked the Bar Council of India office bearers to start an initiative called Lawyers Collective Fund from metropolitan cities where advocates could voluntarily contribute and fund could be utilised for the welfare of young lawyers.
“Like lawyers fund which was started by union minister Arun Jaitley during his tenure as law minister for the welfare of lawyers, this ‘Lawyers Collective’ fund should be started from metropolitan cities and then to tier-II cities with reduced voluntary contribution,” he said.
Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar who was also present on the occasion also supported the initiative and suggested group insurance scheme for the lawyers should also be started by the council.
