ARBITRATION CLAUSES IN COMMERCIAL CONTRACTS: THE SHIFT FROM PROCEDURAL AFTERTHOUGHT TO DISPOSITIVE PRIORITY

This article examines how arbitration clauses in Indian commercial contracts have ceased to be the boilerplate afterthoughts they once were and have instead become among the most consequential provisions that parties to any significant agreement will ever sign. Drawing on the statutory evolution from the Arbitration Act, 1940 through the 1996 Act and its amendment cycles, on Supreme Court decisions that have steadily enlarged the legal force of arbitral commitments, and on comparative material from England, Singapore, and the United States, the article argues that the arbitration clause today is best understood as a dispositive provision — one that shapes not merely the forum in which disputes are heard but the substantive conditions under which commercial rights can be enforced. The article also engages with the criticisms this evolution has attracted and identifies institutional development as the most significant unfinished business in Indian arbitration reform.