India: Arbitration & Dispute Resolution

The Supreme Court of India ("Supreme Court") in the case of State Bank of India vs. Amit Iron Private Limited has clarified that borrowers do not have a vested right to a personal or oral hearing before their loan accounts are classified as fraud under the fraud directions issued by the Reserve Bank of India ("RBI").

The High Court of Bombay through its judgement dated 01.04.2026 in Nalin Vallabhbhai Patel & Anr. v. Atharva Realtors and Ors. held that under Section 29A(4) of the A&C Act, it is only the mandate of the arbitrator that stands terminated and not the arbitral proceedings. The High Court clarified that termination of the mandate does not ipso facto result in termination of the arbitral proceedings, and that the statutory scheme clearly recognizes a distinction between termination of mandate and termination of proceedings.

The present issue stems from an appeal challenging a Bombay High Court order which, while appointing a substitute arbitrator, declared that the arbitral proceedings conducted between 17.03.2022 and 25.08.2022 were held to be void on the grounds that they had been conducted during the moratorium imposed under Section 14 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016.