Institutional arbitration system essential to lure investors: CJI

New Delhi: If India wants to attract investments, it needs to develop a good institutional arbitration system with minimum interference of courts and maximum execution of arbitration awards, Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra said on Saturday. Justice Misra stressed that the country needs to adjust without surrendering "our conceptual sovereignty".

The shift has to be towards institutional arbitration while also keeping in mind the interests of the country. He was speaking at the 'International Conference on Arbitration in the Era of Globalisation' here.

"There is a need and there is a purpose. When you are handling a complex economy, there has to be structural adjudication of disputes," he observed. He added that "apart from the legal issue, it is an issue of getting the investment" and that "India has to inculcate faith in global investors that it has a very good institutional arbitrator system".

"It is not human nature alone but the commercial perceptions, the clauses in the contract and swings in the business sometimes attract arbitrations," he said, adding that alternative dispute resolution system has gained priority and arbitration is one of them. Regarding international disputes, he said that they are required to be solved through international dispute resolution mechanisms.

"We have to adjust. But when we adjust, we don't surrender our conceptual sovereignty. And that is where India has to grow its own arbitration system so that people from other jurisdictions get attracted to have arbitration proceedings here.... While doing business, you also have to look after the interests of the country," he said.