Foreign-seated arbitration and curial law: SIAC rules displaced Indian appellate remedies and court jurisdiction after commencement.

Where parties chose Singapore as the arbitration seat and adopted the SIAC Rules, the Court treated that institutional regime as the curial law governing the proceedings. On that basis, Part I of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, including the Indian appellate remedy under Section 37(2)(b), did not apply to a challenge against the arbitral tribunal's interim order. The Court also held that Section 42 operated only at the pre-arbitration stage and did not preserve Indian court jurisdiction once the foreign-seated arbitration had commenced. The agreed foreign curial regime therefore displaced Indian statutory remedies.

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Issues: (i) whether, in an arbitration seated in Singapore and conducted under the SIAC Rules, Part I of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, including the right of appeal under Section 37(2)(b), applied to challenge an interim order of the arbitral tribunal; (ii) whether Section 42 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, kept Indian court jurisdiction alive after commencement of the foreign-seated arbitral proceedings.

Issue (i): Whether, in an arbitration seated in Singapore and conducted under the SIAC Rules, Part I of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, including the right of appeal under Section 37(2)(b), applied to challenge an interim order of the arbitral tribunal.

Analysis: The arbitration clause provided for Singapore as the seat of arbitration and for conduct of the proceedings in accordance with the SIAC Rules. The governing law clause made the agreement subject to the laws of India, but the Court distinguished between the proper law of the contract and the curial law governing the conduct of the arbitration. It held that the SIAC Rules constituted the curial law and, by reason of the parties' express choice, Rule 32 applied, under which the law of arbitration at a Singapore seat was the International Arbitration Act, 2002 of Singapore. In that setting, the earlier principle that Part I of the 1996 Act could apply unless expressly excluded was held inapplicable, because the parties had positively chosen a different procedural regime for the arbitration itself.

Conclusion: Part I of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, did not govern the arbitral proceedings or the Section 37 challenge, and the appeal was not maintainable on that basis.

Issue (ii): Whether Section 42 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, kept Indian court jurisdiction alive after commencement of the foreign-seated arbitral proceedings.

Analysis: The Court held that Section 42 operated at the pre-arbitral stage and could not override the parties' express agreement on a Singapore seat and SIAC procedure once the arbitral tribunal had been constituted and proceedings had commenced. After commencement of arbitration, the agreed curial law displaced the application of Section 42 and, with it, the Indian court-based appellate mechanism under Part I.

Conclusion: Section 42 did not preserve Indian court jurisdiction over the arbitral proceedings or confer a right of appeal against the interim order.

Final Conclusion: The foreign-seated arbitration was governed by the agreed SIAC curial regime, and the Indian statutory remedies under Part I of the 1996 Act were unavailable for the challenge to the interim order.

Ratio Decidendi: Where parties choose a foreign seat of arbitration and expressly adopt institutional rules that supply the curial law, that procedural regime governs the arbitration and displaces the application of Part I of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, including Indian appellate remedies, once the arbitral proceedings have commenced.

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