A Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court had, on April 25, held by a 3:2 majority that unstamped arbitration agreements are not valid in law.

The judgment was delivered by a bench of Justices KM Joseph, Ajay Rastogi, Aniruddha Bose, Hrishikesh Roy and CT Ravikumar.

Justice Joseph penned the majority opinion joined by Justice Bose. Justice Ravikumar wrote an opinion concurring with the majority view.

Justices Rastogi and Roy had dissented, opining that unstamped arbitration agreements are valid at the pre-referral stage.

Summing up his dissenting opinion, Justice Rastogi had stated that the majority opinion would open the doors for judicial intervention in arbitration cases at the threshold.

Notably, Justice Roy had written,

"I would appeal to the legislative wing of the State to revisit the Amendments which may be necessary in the Stamp Act,1899 in its application to the Arbitration Act,1996 ... efface the inconsistencies in both ... If we look at the legislative intent of the Arbitration Act,1996 and what our country is hoping to be as the destination of choice for Arbitration, I’m of the considered opinion that it would be appropriate to interpret the statutory interplay in a constructive manner without defeating the legislative intent and thwarting the speedy referral to arbitration".

Senior Advocate Gourab Banerji was Amicus Curiae in the matter.

Read more about the arguments in the case here.

Nina Gupta elected to Supreme Court Gender Sensitization & Internal Complaints Committee