before the lower judiciary, across the country, remain pending on this issue, for decades before getting

finally decided. b) Under Service Law, on the issue of payment/calculation of post-retirement benefits
like Pension, Provident Fund, Gratuity, etc. for an eligible employee, there exists a straight-jacket
formula which is linked to the last drawn Basic Salary and number of years of service rendered.
Nevertheless, this category of disputes takes unreasonable time for their adjudication. c) Under
Arbitration Law, on the issue of appointment of Arbitrator, the party in dispute files requisite
applications under Section 11(5) or Section 11(6) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996
(Arbitration Act) before the High Court or Supreme Court (for International Commercial Arbitration). The
scope of judicial discretion in deciding these applications is limited. Nonetheless, such applications tend
to be delayed for years thereby frustrating the very objective of an alternative dispute resolution (ADR).
Owing to time constraints, for the present, we propose building a product to solve the pendency of
applications for appointment of an arbitrator under Section 11(5) or Section 11(6) of the Arbitration Act.
2. Describe the product you are building in 700 words or less 1. We propose to build a product which
acts as a first level filter for the judicial officer / judge deciding the application for appointment of an
arbitrator. We propose to do this by classifying (Supervised Learning) certain types of cases based on the
issue pending before the judge. 2. The Supreme Court in catena of its judgments [See for instance, Duro
Felguera SA v. Gangavaram Port Ltd, reported in (2017) 9 SCC 729], has clarified that in deciding an
application for appointment of an arbitrator, the High Court / Supreme Court must confine itself to the
examination of the existence of an arbitration agreement barring a few exceptions. Given this limited
scope of examination, we propose to build an AI product which clusters the pending applications based
on whether the arbitration agreement is in existence for the purposes of Section 11 (6A) of the
Arbitration Act. This assists the judge in expeditiously deciding matters which have no grey area in the
extant legal jurisprudence. For this purpose, we plan to build input parameters based on sample
arbitration clauses. To illustrate: S No. INPUT OUTPUT REASON 1. No arbitration agreement in contract
annexed to application Appointment of arbitrator not possible No arbitration clause in existence 2.
Arbitration agreement in contract not signed Appointment of arbitrator not possible Invalid consent for
Arbitration. 3. Any dispute, controversy, or claim relating to this agreement, either Party may, but is not
required to submit the Dispute to binding arbitration in accordance with the Arbitration and Conciliation
Act, 1996. The Parties Submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Courts in Mumbai, India Appointment
of arbitrator not possible Clause does not create any binding and mandatory arbitration agreement
between the parties, which is against the mandate of Section 7 of the Arbitration Act. 4. Disputes in
relation to termination of the agreement shall be submitted to binding arbitration in accordance with
the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996. The Parties Submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Courts
in Mumbai, India. Arbitral appointment possible for disputes in relation to termination of the
agreement. Clause is restricted in its scope 5. Any dispute, controversy, or claim relating to this
Agreement, shall be submitted to binding arbitration in accordance with the Arbitration and Conciliation
Act, 1996. The Parties Submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Courts in Mumbai, India Appointment
of arbitrator possible Appears to be a valid arbitration agreement 6. All disputes arising out of or in
connection with the present contract shall be finally settled under the Rules of Arbitration of the
International Chamber of Commerce by one or more arbitrators appointed in accordance with the said
Rules. Appointment of arbitrator possible Appears to be a valid arbitration agreement Table 1 –
Examples of Input-Output Parameters to determine existence of arbitration agreement 3. We note that
the Supreme Court of India (See: Vidya Drolia v. Durga Trading Corporation (2021) 2 SCC 1; BSNL v
Nortel (2021) 5 SCC 738), has more recently held that the Court must also undertake a primary first
review to weed out “manifestly ex facie non-existent and invalid arbitration agreements, or non-
arbitrable disputes”. We posit that the AI tool can also assist the judge in conducting this ‘primary first
review’. This would be based on a summary of the pleadings with respect to pending applications under
Section 11 of the Arbitration Act along with their reply/defences. To illustrate S NO KEY WORDS OUTPUT
REASON 1. Application - Agreement for Rent, Lease, sub-lease, leave and license, etc. Appointment of
arbitrator not possible Subject matter of agreement not arbitrable 2. Reply to application – Claim time
barred due to agreement or Limitation Act, 1963 To be adjudicated on its own merits Issue of time
barred claim/ limitation involved. Table 2 – Examples of Input-Output Parameters to weed out non-
arbitrable disputes 3. You may use a flowchart or diagram to explain this product Flow chart: Process to
determine existence of arbitration agreement and process to classify disputes that require further
judicial determination 4. Name the AI Blocks you are using for this product: IndicNLP 5. Name the
training data sets required for your product We won’t be using any of the provided datasets from the
resource kit. We would be working with the following:- a. Sample arbitration clauses b. Key words for
clustering applications that require judicial determination c. Section 11 Applications as filed in court d.
Reply/Defence to Section 11 Applications e. Judgments passed in Section 11 Applications 6. Who is the
target audience (market) for your product The product is primarily for the judiciary at various levels to
speed-up and assist in its decision making. The product can also be a prediction tool for litigants for
estimating the chances of acceptance of their specified cases, based on the incorporated data sets and
integrated open-source AI blocks so that citizens/litigants can take an informed decision. The illustrative
product for Arbitration Law, is targeted to assist High Court / Supreme Court judges along with litigants
involved in commercial disputes. The product aims to generate automated reports as to the probable
fate of the Section 11 applications, before they are taken up for hearing. The product assumes greater
significance, particularly in the backdrop of the recent order dated 19 May 2022 by the Supreme Court,
in the case of M/s Shree Vishnu Constructions v. The Engineer in Chief, Military Engineering Service &
Ors. (Unreported) wherein, the Supreme Court inter alia directed Chief Justices of High Courts to:
“ensure that all pending applications under Sections 11(5) and 11(6) of the Arbitration Act and/or any
other applications either for substitution of arbitrator and/or change of arbitrator, which are pending for
more than one year from the date of filing, must be decided within six months from today. The Registrar
General(s) of the respective High Courts are directed to submit the compliance report on completion of
six months from today. All endeavour shall be made by the respective High Courts to decide and dispose
of the applications under Sections 11(5) and 11(6) of the Arbitration Act and/or any other like
application at the earliest and preferably within a period of six months from the date of filing of the
applications.” 7. Upload a 2 minute voice recording explaining your product and its benefits 8. What are
the challenges your team expects to face during the Make-a-thon? - Section 11 Applications not publicly
accessible: We can test the efficacy of the AI model based on an actual review of arbitration agreements
as annexed to Section 11 Applications as filed before the High Court / Supreme Court. These applications
are however not accessible to the public. Till such time we gain access to such applications, we propose
using the AI Model to review executed contracts that may / may not contain arbitration agreements. -
Dataset required for building the project is not readily available.