Indian courts remain crucial for urgent relief despite rise of emergency arbitration: JSA Partner Dheeraj Nair

Lawyers faced with an urgent threat to assets in India will still turn to courts despite the availability of emergency arbitration, JSA Partner Dheeraj Nair said on Thursday..Nair said that while emergency arbitration has gained recognition, an Indian court may still offer the quickest and most effective remedy when a party needs protection within a matter of days.“As a practitioner, the first thing that you will do is move to the Indian court, because you know that if it is a Friday evening also, perhaps by Monday morning, you will probably get the matter listed. But can an MCIA or SIAC give me an interim award or an interim order by Monday morning? I'm not so sure. So, practically speaking, we will still run to the court.”.Nair was speaking at The Expanding Reach of Emergency Arbitration: A New Global Trend, a panel organised by the Mumbai Centre for International Arbitration (MCIA) and Drew & Napier as part of Singapore Convention Week 2026.The August 27 event in Singapore was part of a programme titled The India–Singapore Arbitration Corridor: Emergency Relief, Interim Measures & Cross-Border Challenges. The panel also featured AZB & Partners Partner Abhijnan Jha, Mumbai Centre for International Arbitration (MCIA) Registrar and Secretary General Neeti Sachdeva and independent counsel Alipak Banerjee.The discussion was moderated by Mahesh Rai of Drew & Napier, who framed the debate around a practical question: when a client needs urgent protection, should counsel approach an emergency arbitrator or go directly to an Indian court?.Nair's comments came during a discussion on whether emergency arbitration can offer a genuine substitute for court-ordered interim relief.He said the answer would depend, among other things, on where the assets are located, against whom the order has to be enforced and which remedy is the most effective and quickest.Where an asset in India faces an imminent threat, Nair said he would be inclined to approach the relevant Indian court rather than first obtain an emergency order abroad and subsequently attempt to secure relief in India.However, he said emergency arbitration could work more effectively where the relief operates directly against a contracting party and does not require the assistance of third parties or state machinery..The discussion then turned to the Supreme Court's landmark ruling in Amazon v Future Retail, which recognised emergency arbitration in the context of an India-seated arbitration.Jha, who acted for Amazon in the dispute, said the judgment showed that India's Arbitration and Conciliation Act was flexible enough to accommodate innovations in arbitral procedure even without an express statutory reference to emergency arbitrators.He said the ruling was also significant for what he described as the principle of “party accountability”.“Which means that if you have chosen emergency arbitration through institutional rules, whether through the MCIA rules or the SIAC rules, you have to be considered to be bound.”.However, Jha said Amazon did not resolve the position of emergency orders arising from foreign-seated arbitrations.He pointed to differing approaches among Indian High Courts, saying the Bombay, Calcutta, Madras and Karnataka High Courts have generally taken a more deferential approach towards such orders while considering Section 9 relief.“So, I think, on balance, the deferential approach - the Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, and Karnataka High Courts' approach - I think that seems to be prevailing, and I think the Delhi High Court's slightly divergent approach may not last.”.Sachdeva offered the institutional perspective. She said MCIA's rules provide for appointment of an emergency arbitrator within one business day, with a decision ordinarily required within 14 days.She acknowledged, however, that an institution could not necessarily deliver an emergency order by Monday merely because an application was made on Friday. She said,“But would you get your order on Monday? No. Because you will have to have that emergency arbitrator go through the process and deliver that order.”Sachdeva said MCIA had so far handled only a small number of emergency arbitration applications, but had met the 14-day deadline in all but one case, where the parties chose to continue with a full-fledged arbitration instead.She also said MCIA had consciously stopped short of allowing emergency relief entirely without notice to the opposite party, given the existing position under Indian law. She said, “I think we like to take a little bit more conservative view when it comes to EA, and maybe not for other things.".Banerjee, meanwhile, said emergency arbitration involving Indian parties was already significant in scale. Citing SIAC statistics, he said India had figured in about 140 emergency arbitrations since the mechanism was introduced in 2010.“So, outside Singapore, India is the largest litigant, in that sense, in the EA world.”He added that the growing adoption of without-notice emergency relief by arbitral institutions could eventually reduce the need for parties to rush to courts.“I think this is the way the future is. We will see all institutions slowly adopt this practice.”.The panel ultimately agreed that Indian law still requires reform when it comes to foreign-seated emergency arbitration.