Hindustan Vidyut contracted to supply electrical conductors to the Rajasthan government. The matter went for arbitration. The arbitrator decided that Hindustan Vidyut owed the state government Rs 14.53 lakh. However, since the state government had already encashed the bank guarantee of Rs 15.67 lakh, the company was entitled to the balance sum of about Rs 1,13 lakh. It seems that the parties took a round of the Supreme Court which held that the company would be entitled to the same rate of interest as it was paying to its banker Dena Bank. Dena Bank certified that it had been charging 16 per cent per annum. Accordingly, the arbitrator allowed that interest. The arbitrator specifically dealt with the state government's contention about its entitlement from the company of the value of the raw materials given to it for the manufacture of the conductors and not returned to it. Herejected this contention. The matter than wound its way from the district court, and via the high court it became an appeal in the Supreme Court in 1989. For 10 years it lay in the apex court, unattended and uncared for by the state government. If this is the pace at which arbitration cases are to be decided then India can wish goodbye to its dream of becoming an international arbitration center.

What is worse is that all this time was taken to decide a point which was purely factual. The state government opposed the award in the district judge's court on the ground that an error had taken place in not refunding the cost of the raw materials supplied to the company. The district judge rejected the contention but the high court reversed the district judge.

After a 10-year wait, the apex court pointed out that there was no question of an error. The government officer who put the spokes into the arbitration award got away with it and continues in the government to spike more awards and there is no machineryin the apex court to ensure that arbitration award appeals do not stagnate in its registry. Since the apex court did not impose any costs on the state government and did not direct that these be deducted from the salary of the officer concerned with this case in the law department, there is no incentive for any government not to repeat such conduct. Maybe, the international conference can address itself to the twin issues of efficiency and transparency in litigation on arbitration awards, especially in the developing countries, wherein the judiciary has increasingly become the domineering but wholly unaccountable part of governance.

Another problem in making India into an international arbitral centre is the absence of infrastructure of world standards for holding arbitrations. Despite all the technological advancement in the country there is not a single arbitration forum with the necessary electronic equipment for recording and transcribing, accurately and quickly, arbitration proceedings. Duringexamination and cross-examinations, counsel must repeat their questions, then repeat the answers and pray for accurate reprodcution by the stenographer concerned. Even the name of the counsel representing the parties are printed wrongly. The next problem is the introduction of formats to be filled in by the arbitrators at the commencement of an arbitration, the arbitration parties or the companies involved therein. Prevention is better than cure, especially since arbitrators increasingly come from the judiciary which today has no public accountability systems for the appointment of its judges and, where judges, even if wronged by a higher level of judges, have no remedy due to the binding pronouncements of the apex court itself. The judicial monopolisation of arbitration without any accountability could be a valuable issue for the international conference.

Last is the touchy issue of fees for arbitrators. The arbitral organisation today fixes a level of fees to be paid through it to the arbitrators at aridculously low level. This leads to either taking away arbitration out of these organisations by the parties to set up their own private arbitration or to undesirable channels of payment. This is no way of promoting arbitration.