In short. Emergency arbitration gets you urgent interim relief from a temporary arbitrator before the full tribunal exists. It usually takes about two weeks. But only if your arbitration clause adopts institutional rules that offer it, such as DIAC, MCIA, SIAC or ICC. For arbitrations seated in India, the Supreme Court held in Amazon v. Future Retail (2021) that the order is enforceable like a tribunal's interim order under Section 17. A foreign-seated emergency order can't be enforced directly. You'd have to apply to an Indian court under Section 9. Read your clause before anything else.
Is this your situation?
- You've heard the other side is about to sell the assets, move the shares or encash the money this dispute is about. The full tribunal is still weeks away.
- Your contract mentions DIAC, MCIA, SIAC or ICC, and someone in a meeting said the words 'emergency arbitrator'.
- An emergency arbitrator's order against your company landed in the inbox this morning, and you want to know if you really have to obey it.
- You won an emergency order in a Singapore or London seated arbitration. The assets you want to reach are all in India.
- It's late on a Thursday and you have to choose between rushing to court under Section 9 and filing with an emergency arbitrator.
- You're drafting a joint venture agreement and wondering whether an emergency arbitration option is worth the extra lines.
Emergency arbitration, explained simply
It's a fast-track procedure found in the rules of arbitral institutions. If you need urgent interim relief, you apply to the institution, and it appoints a single emergency arbitrator within a day or two. He hears both sides, usually over video, and passes an order within a short, fixed period. Then his work is done. The main dispute is decided later by the regular tribunal, which can confirm, change or cancel what he ordered.
Why does it exist? Because forming a tribunal is slow. Notices have to be served. The other side gets time to nominate its arbitrator, the two nominees then pick a presiding arbitrator, and everyone exchanges disclosures. In a contested matter that can take weeks, sometimes months. Meanwhile a promoter can sell the shares. A customer can invoke the bank guarantee. A distributor you've terminated can keep selling stock under your brand out of a godown in Kundli. The emergency arbitrator covers that gap.
It's a creature of contract. Statute has nothing to do with it. The Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 doesn't mention emergency arbitrators at all. You get the procedure only if your arbitration clause adopts rules that provide for it. A purely ad hoc clause, the kind that just says disputes go to a sole arbitrator appointed by the parties, gives you no emergency arbitrator. Your fast route then is the court, under Section 9.
Does the Arbitration Act recognise it?
Not in so many words. The Law Commission of India, in its 246th Report (2014), recommended widening the definition of arbitral tribunal to cover an emergency arbitrator. Parliament didn't pick that up in the 2015 amendment. Nor in 2019, nor in 2021. The Act still has no section on the subject, so whether an emergency arbitrator's order had any legal force in India was left to the courts to work out.
In October 2024, the Department of Legal Affairs put out a draft Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) Bill for public comment. One of its proposals was a new Section 9A, letting institutions provide for emergency arbitrators and making their orders enforceable like tribunal orders. As far as we could find, the draft hadn't been introduced in Parliament as of late 2026. None of it is law yet. Check the current position before you rely on it. Until something changes, the enforceability question in India is answered by one judgment.
What the Supreme Court said in Amazon v. Future
It began with Amazon's 2019 investment in Future Coupons, one of the Future group's promoter companies. Arbitration under the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) rules was the agreed route in the shareholder agreements, with New Delhi as the seat. Then, in 2020, Future Retail agreed to sell its retail business to the Reliance group. Amazon objected that this breached its contractual rights. It applied for emergency relief, and in October 2020 an emergency arbitrator appointed under the SIAC rules restrained the Future parties from going ahead with the deal. The order was ignored. So Amazon asked the Delhi High Court to enforce it.
Judgment came on 6 August 2021, in Amazon.com NV Investment Holdings LLC v. Future Retail Ltd. The Supreme Court settled two points. First, an emergency award made under institutional rules is valid when the seat is in India. Section 2(6) lets parties authorise an institution to decide issues. Section 2(8) treats the rules they adopt as part of their own agreement. And the Act says nothing that rules out an emergency arbitrator. The emergency award is therefore an order under Section 17(1), which can be enforced under Section 17(2) as though the court had made it. Second, when a court enforces such an award under Section 17(2), the losing side gets no appeal under Section 37.
In practice, for India-seated arbitrations, the emergency order stopped being a polite request. Ignore one now and you're exposed to everything that follows disobeying a court injunction, attachment of property included. Businesses noticed. Institutions that offer an emergency arbitrator look a lot more attractive to Indian companies after Amazon, and that's no accident.
The provisions you'll be dealing with
Sections 2(6) and 2(8), Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996
Section 2(6) lets the parties authorise a third party, an institution included, to decide an issue. Section 2(8) makes institutional rules named in the agreement part of that agreement. The Supreme Court leaned on both to uphold emergency arbitration.
Section 17(1) and (2)
Section 17(1) lets the tribunal grant the same kinds of interim measures a court can. Preserving goods, securing the amount in dispute, injunctions, receivers and the like. Section 17(2) then makes the order enforceable under the Code of Civil Procedure, as if the court itself had passed it.
Section 9
The court can grant interim measures before the arbitration, during it, or in limited cases after it. If it grants relief before the arbitration starts, arbitral proceedings have to begin within 90 days or any longer time it fixes. Once the tribunal is in place, Section 9(3) stops the court from entertaining the application, unless the Section 17 remedy wouldn't be efficacious.
Section 37(2)(b)
You can appeal to the court against a tribunal's order granting or refusing an interim measure under Section 17. A court order enforcing a Section 17 order under Section 17(2) is a different thing. It isn't appealable under Section 37, as Amazon held.
Rule 14, DIAC (Arbitration Proceedings) Rules, 2023
This is DIAC's emergency arbitrator provision. The order has to come within 14 days of the emergency arbitrator's appointment, and after that he's functus officio (his role is over). The order stays in force for 90 days unless the tribunal modifies, substitutes or vacates it. Only the tribunal can extend it.
The main institutions compared on time and cost
| Institution and rules | Emergency arbitrator? | Time for the order | Cost | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DIAC (Arbitration Proceedings) Rules, 2023 | Yes, Rule 14 | Within 14 days of appointment | Application fee plus the emergency arbitrator's fee, per DIAC's schedule (check current figures) | The order lapses after 90 days unless the tribunal acts. The Delhi High Court held so in MCD v. Himalayan Flora & Aromas (2025) |
| MCIA Rules (Mumbai Centre for International Arbitration) | Yes | Within 14 days, under the current rules | A fixed deposit set by MCIA; see its schedule | You'll need to show notice to the other side |
| SIAC Rules, 2025 (Singapore) | Yes | A short fixed period under Schedule 1 | Filing fee and deposit set by SIAC, in Singapore dollars | The 2025 rules also allow a protective preliminary order without notice in some cases |
| ICC Rules, 2021 | Yes | Usually within 15 days of receiving the file | A fixed fee set by ICC, in US dollars | Not available if the parties opted out or agreed some other pre-arbitral procedure |
| Ad hoc arbitration | No | Doesn't apply | Doesn't apply | Go to court with a Section 9 petition. See the Section 9 comparison further down |
Applying for an emergency arbitrator, step by step
We've followed DIAC practice here. Other institutions work much the same way, with their own forms and deposits.
Read the clause and the rules it adopts
Make sure the clause names an institution whose rules include an emergency arbitrator, and that the parties haven't excluded it. Note the seat. It decides whether the order can be enforced in India.
Get the notice of arbitration ready, or serve it
Most rules let you file the emergency application with the request for arbitration or before it. You still have to start the main arbitration within the time the rules allow, so keep the Section 21 notice ready to go.
Draft the emergency application
Spell out the relief and the urgency, and why it can't wait for the tribunal. Then the prima facie case, the balance of convenience, and the harm money won't repair. Attach the contract and your strongest evidence.
Pay the deposit and file
File with the institution's secretariat and pay the application fee and the emergency arbitrator's deposit. Unpaid deposits hold things up more often than anything else.
Serve the other side
Send them the application straight away, by email and by courier. An order passed without proper notice is easier to attack later.
Appointment and hearing
The institution appoints an emergency arbitrator, usually within a couple of days. He sets a tight timetable. Often that means a written reply and a video hearing within days.
The order, within the fixed time
Under the DIAC rules the order comes within 14 days of appointment. It may grant relief, refuse it or grant part of it, and it may require security or an undertaking from you.
Form the tribunal, and enforce if you must
Push to get the regular tribunal formed, so it can extend or confirm the order before it lapses. If the other side disobeys, go to court under Section 17(2).
Enforcing an emergency order when the seat is in India
You apply under Section 17(2) to the court with jurisdiction over the arbitration, usually the court at the seat. It treats the emergency order as if it were its own interim order and can use the Code of Civil Procedure to enforce it. That includes the powers it uses against someone who disobeys an injunction, like attaching property or detention in civil prison. For arbitrations of commercial value in Delhi, you'd be before the Commercial Court or the Commercial Division of the Delhi High Court, depending on value. Check the current limit.
The enforcing court won't hear an appeal on the merits. The resisting party can argue the order has stopped operating, or was made without jurisdiction or without notice, or that the facts have changed. That's about all. A challenge to the order itself is a separate proceeding, an appeal under Section 37(2)(b), and the appellate court looks only for perversity or a clear error of law. It won't reassess the evidence. Our note on Section 37 appeals against arbitration orders covers that route.
Speed matters here too. An emergency order a few weeks away from lapsing under the institution's rules is a weak base for enforcement, unless the regular tribunal has extended it. File for enforcement promptly. At the same time, ask the tribunal to confirm the relief.
Once the full tribunal is in place
The emergency order doesn't vanish the day the tribunal is constituted. It does stop being the last word. From that point the regular tribunal is in charge of interim relief. Either side can ask it to continue, vary or set aside the emergency order, and it decides afresh under Section 17, with fuller pleadings and sometimes oral evidence. Often it's the very first thing taken up at the first procedural hearing.
If you won the emergency order, your job is to get the tribunal formed, and in front of it, before the order runs out. Under the DIAC rules that's within 90 days of the order, unless the tribunal extends it. Nominate your arbitrator quickly and lean on the other side to nominate theirs. If they drag their feet, use the appointment mechanism in the rules, or a Section 11 petition in court. If you're the one bound by the order, this is your first real chance to have it looked at again without going to court. Don't treat that hearing as a formality. Go in with a proper application and documents.
Courts see emergency arbitration as a bridge to the main case, never as the destination. Sit on an emergency order for months without pursuing the main arbitration, and you'll get little sympathy when you later ask a court to enforce it.
Can a Singapore or London emergency award be enforced here?
No, not directly. Part II of the Act is the New York Convention machinery, and it only deals with awards that finally settle the dispute, or some part of it. An emergency order doesn't do that. It's interim. The leading Delhi decision is Raffles Design International India Pvt Ltd v. Educomp Professional Education Ltd (2016), where the High Court refused to enforce, under the Act, an emergency order from a SIAC arbitration seated in Singapore. What the party could do instead, the court said, was ask for interim relief under Section 9. Since the 2015 amendment, Section 9 has covered foreign-seated arbitrations too, unless the parties have excluded it.
So if you hold a foreign emergency order, you file a Section 9 petition in India and persuade the court on the merits all over again. The emergency arbitrator's reasoning helps, and judges do read it. But the Indian court decides for itself. The reverse matters as well. In Ashwani Minda v. U-Shin Ltd (2020), the Delhi High Court refused Section 9 relief to a party that had already tried for emergency relief under Japanese institutional rules and failed. The court saw the petition as a second bite at the same cherry. Choose the emergency arbitrator in a foreign-seated case and you may not get a fresh hearing in India on the same facts.
Final foreign awards are another matter. They're enforced under Sections 44 to 49, and we explain how in enforcing a foreign arbitral award in India. For the seat question, see what the seat of arbitration is and why it decides the court.
Emergency arbitrator or Section 9 petition?
Both get you interim relief before the tribunal exists. Which one suits you depends on how fast you need it, how private you want it, whether you need to bind people outside the contract, and where you'll have to enforce. A Section 9 court can hear an urgent matter the day it's mentioned. It can pass an ex parte order (one made without hearing the other side) where the case calls for it. And it can bind third parties like banks. An emergency arbitrator acts only between the parties to the arbitration agreement. He can't bind a bank or a buyer who's a stranger to it, and under most rules he has to hear the other side before ordering anything.
Emergency arbitration has its own advantages, though. It's confidential. The arbitrator is often picked because he knows this type of contract well. There's no waiting for your matter to be listed. And for India-seated arbitrations, after Amazon, the order carries real weight. Our page on where to file a Section 9 petition for urgent relief sets out the court route.
When clients ask Advocate B.K. Singh which way to go, the first thing he looks at is who has to obey the order. If the damage will be done by a bank, a warehouse or a buyer who never signed the arbitration agreement, you'll usually need a court order. If only your counterparty can do the harm, and the seat is in India, an emergency arbitrator is a serious option. Often the more private one, too.
What an emergency arbitrator can order, and what he can't
His powers match the tribunal's under Section 17(1). He can freeze things as they are, on shares or property. He can stop a former licensee from using your confidential information, or your trademark after the licence has ended. Goods and documents can be ordered preserved, and security can be ordered for the amount in dispute. It cuts both ways. The applicant may be told to put up security itself, or to undertake to pay damages if the order turns out to have been wrong.
What he can't do is decide the case. If the relief asked for would give the applicant its whole claim up front, an order to pay everything, say, it's seldom granted at this stage. Non-parties are beyond his reach. And the order is built to be temporary. DIAC's rules let it lapse after 90 days unless the tribunal steps in, and the Delhi High Court applied exactly that in MCD v. Himalayan Flora & Aromas Pvt Ltd (2025), holding the order had lapsed. For a walk through Rule 14, see our sister site's guide on the DIAC emergency arbitrator.
Papers for an emergency application
The contract and the dispute
- The signed contract with the arbitration clause, and any amendments
- The institutional rules as they stand on the day you file
- Your notice of breach or termination, and whatever they wrote back
- The Section 21 notice invoking arbitration, or a draft ready to send
Proof that it's urgent
- Emails, letters or public announcements showing the threatened act and when it's due
- Board resolutions, share transfer forms or a bank guarantee invocation letter, whichever applies
- Evidence that money won't make it good, such as lost market share, lost customers or confidential data at risk
Filing papers
- A board resolution or authority letter for whoever signs
- Proof you've paid the institution's fee and deposit
- Proof of service on the other side
- A draft order saying exactly what you want stopped or preserved
An invented example: shares about to change hands before the tribunal sits
Purely invented, for illustration. A logistics startup in Gurugram has two shareholder groups. Under its shareholders' agreement, the investor has a right of first refusal if the founder sells any shares, and disputes go to arbitration under the DIAC rules, seated at New Delhi. Over coffee, an industry contact tells the investor that the founder has signed a term sheet to sell his whole stake to a competitor. Completion is in ten days.
The investor moves the same afternoon. A notice invoking arbitration goes out, and an emergency application is filed with DIAC with the agreement, the term sheet (which it has managed to get a copy of) and emails pointing to the planned completion date. Within a couple of days DIAC has appointed an emergency arbitrator. He hears both sides over video. His order: the founder must keep the status quo on his shares until the tribunal is formed, and the investor must undertake to pay damages if the order later proves unjustified. While this is going on, each side names its arbitrator. The regular tribunal is up and running inside two months and turns to whether the order should continue before the 90-day period runs out. Two what-ifs. Had the founder simply ignored the order, the investor's next stop would have been the Delhi court under Section 17(2). And if the share register had been kept by an outside party that wouldn't cooperate, a Section 9 petition would have been the safer tool.
Where parties go wrong with emergency arbitration
- Assuming every clause allows it. Only institutional rules create an emergency arbitrator. An ad hoc clause won't. Nor will a clause that names an institution but carves out its emergency provisions.
- Letting the order lapse. Under rules like DIAC's, the order has a limited life. If the regular tribunal isn't formed and asked to extend it in time, your protection simply disappears.
- Forgetting to start the main arbitration. Most rules want the request for arbitration filed within a short period. Miss it and the emergency order can fall.
- Trying to bind outsiders. Banks, buyers and group companies that didn't sign the arbitration agreement aren't bound. For them, go to court.
- Running two forums at once, carelessly. Ask the emergency arbitrator and a court for the same relief and you'll face an abuse of process argument. Ashwani Minda is the warning.
- Expecting a foreign emergency order to be enforced directly. It won't be. With a foreign seat, plan for a Section 9 petition in India from day one.
Who should add an emergency arbitrator option to their contracts?
Think about what your disputes will actually be over. If it's something that can disappear quickly, the option earns its place. Shares, IP, confidential data, goods sitting in a warehouse, an exclusive territory, a performance guarantee. So joint ventures, shareholder agreements, technology licences and distribution agreements are the obvious ones. A plain supply contract is different, because any fight there will be about unpaid invoices and an interim order rarely protects a money claim. It adds little.
If you want the option, name an institution and adopt its rules expressly. Fix the seat in India if you expect to enforce here. And stay away from wording that limits interim relief to courts only. Our guides on ad hoc versus institutional arbitration and drafting an arbitration clause for Indian contracts show sample approaches. For the money side, deposits included, see what arbitration costs in India.
In Advocate B.K. Singh's experience, the emergency clause only helps if someone in the business knows it's there. Keep a one-page note in the contract file saying which institution, which seat and whom to call. The first days after a threatened breach usually go in hunting for the signed copy.
What to do over the next few days
Find the signed contract. Not the draft, the signed one. Read its dispute clause side by side with the institutional rules it brings in, and write down the seat. Make a list of what the other side is threatening to do and by when, and pull together the emails or papers that show it. Where the seat is in India and the clause names an institution with emergency provisions, prepare the Section 21 notice and the emergency application in one go. If the seat is abroad, or the damage will come from someone who isn't a party, a Section 9 petition is what you should be getting ready. Our home page has more on arbitration in India.
If you'd like your clause and papers checked before you apply, or want updates on the draft amendment and on how courts are treating emergency orders, you can reach Advocate B.K. Singh's team through our contact page.
Frequently asked questions
How long does an emergency arbitration take?
Under the DIAC rules, the emergency arbitrator has to pass the order within 14 days of appointment, and the appointment itself is usually quick. Other institutions have similar short periods. From filing, the whole thing typically runs about two weeks.
Can an emergency arbitrator pass an order without hearing the other side?
Most rules need notice to the other party and a short hearing. The SIAC Rules, 2025 allow a protective preliminary order without notice in some situations. That's the exception, though.
Will the emergency arbitrator be the one who decides the case?
Usually not. Most rules bar the emergency arbitrator from acting in the main arbitration unless the parties agree.
Can the tribunal cancel an emergency arbitrator's order?
Yes. The regular tribunal can confirm, modify, substitute or vacate it. Under the DIAC rules, only the tribunal can extend it beyond 90 days.
Does emergency arbitration apply to MSME Facilitation Council cases?
No. A Council reference under Section 18 of the MSMED Act follows its own statutory process of conciliation and arbitration. Interim relief there comes from the Council or the court.
What does an emergency arbitration cost?
The institution charges an application fee and a deposit towards the emergency arbitrator's fees, under its current schedule. Lawyers' fees are separate. They depend on how urgent it is and how many papers are involved.
Can I go to court if the emergency arbitrator refuses relief?
In an India-seated arbitration you can appeal the refusal under Section 37(2)(b). A fresh Section 9 petition for the same relief is likely to be opposed as a second attempt, as happened in Ashwani Minda (2020).
Does an emergency arbitrator's order bind a bank holding a guarantee?
No. It binds only the parties to the arbitration agreement. To restrain a bank you'll generally need a court order, and courts step in on bank guarantees only in narrow cases such as fraud or irretrievable injustice.
Advocate B.K. Singh
Founder of B.K. Singh & Associates. MCA, LL.B., LL.M. More than twenty years in practice before the Supreme Court, the Delhi High Court, district and commercial courts in Delhi NCR, and tribunals.
This guide explains the law in general terms and is not legal advice. For advice on your own papers, contact the team.