Report No. 76

1.10. History in Indi.- Regulation.-

India has a long tradition of arbitration. The settlement of differences by tribunals chosen by the parties themselves, whose decision is to be accepted as final and conclusive between themselves-which is the basic idea of arbitration-was well known to Hindus in ancient India. There were in fact, different grades of arbitrators with provisions for appeals in certain cases from the award of a lower grade of arbitrators to arbitrators of the higher grade.

The practice seems to have been in vogue immediately before the advent of the British. Sircar1 refers to an interesting article on the subject2 published in 1828. Apart from the courts statutorily established by the king, where the king or the chief justice appointed by him presided, other tribunals were recognised in the ancient smritis (legal texts) and digests.3

1. Sircar on Law of Arbitration in British India, (1942), p. 5.

2. Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, (1828), Vol. 2.

3. Dr. P.B. Gajendragadkar, Address to the Fifth International Arbitration Congress, Proceedings of the Fifth International Arbitration Congress, (7-10 Jan. 1975, New Delhi), pp. BI-3 to BI-4.