The Arbitration Council of India (ACI) is a proposed statutory regulatory body established under Part IA (Sections 43A–43M) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996. Its creation was enabled by the Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) Act, 2019, which was enacted on August 9, 2019. The ACI was proposed following the recommendations of the High-Level Committee chaired by Justice B.N. Srikrishna in 2017, with the aim of reforming and strengthening India's arbitration ecosystem to promote institutional arbitration.
The ACI is intended to be a body corporate with perpetual succession, headquartered in Delhi. Its functions, detailed in Section 43D of the Act, include framing policy for the grading of arbitral institutions, recognizing professional institutes for the accreditation of arbitrators, and maintaining an electronic depository of arbitral awards. The Council is to be chaired by a former Supreme Court or High Court judge or an eminent arbitration expert, appointed by the Central Government in consultation with the Chief Justice of India.
The ACI is distinct from the Indian Council of Arbitration (ICA), a non-governmental arbitral institution established in 1965. It connects to the broader legal framework of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, and the establishment of the India International Arbitration Centre under the India International Arbitration Centre Act, 2019.
A significant recent development is that the Union Government has not yet constituted the ACI, nearly six years after the enabling law was amended. Furthermore, the Draft Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) Bill, 2024, proposes further reforms, such as introducing emergency arbitration via a new Section 9-A and expanding the powers of arbitral institutions, which would affect the regulatory landscape the ACI is meant to govern.