Arbitration and Conciliation Act- Duties and Liabilities of Arbitrator or Arbitration Panel

Duties

Arbitrator is under obligation to do below things

Conduct or proceedings without delay

Whole point of arbitration is Speedy and less expensive remedy. Hence arbitrator has to carry of the process without delay, so that parties are happy in the end.

Section 18-Treat both the parties equally

"Justice should not only be done, but  should appears to be done". Section 18 provides that both parties should be give full opportunity to present their cases.

Impartiality and non-bias are sine qua non for any proceedings, as biased outcome is no outcome.

Keep all matter confidential

Arbitrator has duty to keep all matter confidential as this is private adjudication. He should maintain the privacy as there are stakes of both the parties in keeping some fact secret. If Mr Ambani is involved in some arbitration proceeding and feels that few things should not come out in public as it will affect share prices etc, then arbitrator is bound to keep these secret.

Section 29-Decision by majority

Decision of arbitral proceedings should be made by  majority if there are more than one member in the panel

Section 31-Duty to sign the award

Arbitral panel should declare the award by written statement. If there are multiple members, then such awards should be signed by majority panel members. Also the awards should be reasoned and not arbitrary.

No unilateral communication with one party only

If arbitrator is drinking tea with one party, naturally it will give rise to doubt. So arbitrator should avoid communicating unilaterally with any particular party.

Duty to decide matter on arbitration agreement and law

Arbitrator should decide matter as per arbitration agreement and due regard to law, prevalent at that time.


Powers of arbitrator are discussed here


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