Supreme Court asks the Law Commission of India to study how arbitral awards are recovered

29 October 2026

A construction firm came to the Supreme Court because money awarded to it by an arbitrator was still not in hand, and it wanted the Court to watch over the recovery proceedings itself.
The Court declined that role. It said it cannot sit above a pending execution case and keep issuing clarifications, because that would turn the trial court into a post office.
But the judges accepted that the delay complained of is widespread. Winning an arbitration in India, they noted, is often only the start of a second fight.
So the Court turned to the Law Commission of India. It asked the Commission to examine the whole enforcement framework and to recommend what would make recovery quick and certain.
The Commission has been asked to list the practical blocks to recovery and to say whether Indian awards and foreign awards need separate routes or one common route with safeguards.
The registry was told to send a copy of the judgment to the Commission's chairman.
Under Section 36 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, an award is enforced in the same way as a decree of a civil court, which is why the Code of Civil Procedure governs the recovery stage.