Speaking on the occasion, Banerji said that India has made tremendous progress in the arbitration landscape with arbitration being made time bound and courts becoming less interventionist.
He said that the inauguration of ABI marks the fruition of the idea to set up a dedicated arbitration bar.
“It is due to the efforts of a number of people on and off the dais,” he said.
He outlined the goals of ABI one which would be to promote and increase diversity in arbitration.
“A major goal is diversity and equal opportunity in arbitration. We have taken the equality pledge. Our executive committee and office bearers have a significant representation of women. We have a special woman’s chapter. You will hear more about that soon,” he said.
He also said that a question has often been asked on why another body on arbitration is required.
He answered the question by explaining what ABI is what and it proposes to do.
“We are not an institution but a bar. We are a pan-India organisation and an association of individual arbitration practitioners – people who specialise in arbitration. We don’t intend to the take on (other arbitration) institutions. We want to complement them by providing them with human capital,” he explained.
On the other goals of ABI, he said,
“One of our goals is to promote excellence, professionalism, ethics and promote arbitration nationally and internationally. Then is to address Arbitration being limited to select few and increase the pool of competent younger arbitrators to take that on. Third is to establish a network for sharing insights and setting up standards,” he said.
One other goal of ABI is to increase the pool of arbitrators and to increase the pool of competent younger men and women who can take that on.
Source: Barandbench
