Arbitration Agreements: Decluttering the Intentions

Contracts and agreements are the concepts and terms dominating the present era. People are now inclined towards forming a contract or agreement in the first instance, while dealing with one another, to bring in the legal sanctity into their relationship and to have a clear understanding of each other's intentions which help to avoid while, the same can be of immense help in dispute resolution, if any arises in the future. ADR is internationally talked about and accepted dispute resolution mechanism. Herein, parties enter into an arbitration agreement with each other with the arbitration clause citing the procedure via which the dispute would be resolved peacefully, efficaciously and speedily. These arbitration agreements are nothing more than a document depicting the intentions of the parties. But at times, when these arbitration agreements are not clearly written or are ambiguous, then it is the duty of the adjudicating body to determine and carve out their real intentions and for the same Indian Supreme Court in various judicial decisions have laid down the principles and procedures to follow. This paper aims to discuss various such Supreme Court judgments. According to these decisions if the otherwise conduct and correspondences between the parties show in positive the existence of arbitration agreement and mutual consent to follow such an intention. Further, this paper also discusses, in bits, a new doctrine i.e. 'group of companies’ doctrine' that caught court’s attention while discussing about the existence of arbitration agreements and decluttering the intentions of the parties for the same.