How to Choose a DIAC Arbitration Lawyer in Delhi

What should your DIAC lawyer actually be doing?

Four jobs, really. The first is reading the arbitration clause and telling you whether the dispute belongs at DIAC at all, and on what terms. The second is building the case on paper: the request, the statement of claim or defence, the documents and the witness affidavits. Third come the hearings, cross-examination included, before a tribunal that has read the file and expects counsel to have read it too. The fourth job is quieter. Your lawyer has to keep the record clean enough that the award survives the narrow court challenge that may follow under Section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, and can then be enforced as a decree under Section 36.

The rest is detail. A lawyer can be pleasant, well turned out and sitting five minutes from the High Court. If he hasn't read your clause by the end of the first meeting, he isn't doing job one. Another may talk confidently about winning but can't tell you roughly what the DIAC deposit will be, or when pleadings must close. He isn't ready for jobs two and three. We've written the checks below so that a business owner with no legal training can test all four in one or two meetings.

Still hazy on what DIAC is and how it differs from a court? Read our short note on what DIAC is and how it works first. You'll ask sharper questions. The meetings get shorter too.

Why DIAC work isn't the same job as a court case

In a commercial suit, the court sets the pace, the registry checks your papers and the State pays the judge. At DIAC the parties pay the tribunal. Fees are assessed under the DIAC (Administrative Costs and Arbitrators' Fees) Rules, 2018 on the sum in dispute, and each side is normally asked to deposit its share. Plenty of lawyers who mostly do court work never think about deposits. At DIAC that habit can sink you. Rule 33.5 of the DIAC (Arbitration Proceedings) Rules, 2023 lets the Centre or the tribunal terminate the proceedings as to a claim or counter claim if the deposit isn't made within 30 days of falling due.

The clock's tighter too. Section 23(4) of the Act expects pleadings to be complete within six months of the arbitrator receiving notice of appointment. Section 29A then allows twelve months from the close of pleadings for the award. The parties can agree to six more. After that, only the court can extend. A lawyer who habitually asks for time costs you real money here, because the fees and the tribunal's mandate are both running.

And you usually get one proper shot at your case. A Section 34 court won't rehear the facts. The Supreme Court made that plain in Ssangyong Engineering v. NHAI (2019). If a document wasn't filed, or a witness wasn't cross-examined on a point, it's very hard to repair later. So pick someone who builds the record with care from the first week. That record is all the court will see if the award is ever challenged.

Nine plain checks you can run on any DIAC lawyer

• They read the clause first. Before a word about strategy, a careful lawyer asks for the contract and goes through the arbitration clause with you: the seat, how many arbitrators, whether DIAC and its rules are named, and who appoints.
• They ask about dates. When did the money fall due? When was the last payment or written acknowledgment? Has the other side received a notice invoking arbitration under Section 21? Limitation in arbitration turns on exactly these dates.
• They can explain the DIAC deposit. Not to the last rupee. But they should know that the fee depends on the sum in dispute, that a counter claim gets added on, and what happens when one side won't pay.
• They tell you who'll appear. You should know who drafts, who handles procedural hearings, who cross-examines, and whether a senior advocate might come in for final arguments.
• They check conflicts. Before hearing your story in detail, a careful lawyer asks for the other side's name and its group companies.
• They bring up the counter claim. Most respondents at DIAC file one. If nobody has asked what the other side might claim back, nobody has thought about your exposure.
• They mention settlement. DIAC runs mediation, and parties can settle at any point through a consent award under Section 30. A lawyer who never raises it is thinking about the hearing, not about your business.
• They put things in writing. The scope of work, the fee for each stage and the papers still missing should reach you on paper or by email.
• They're straight about limits. If the claim is weak, time-barred or worth less than it'll cost to run, you should hear it in the first meeting. Not after the deposit's been paid.

Does the lawyer read your clause before talking strategy?

Of all the tests, this one tells you the most. Some DIAC clauses are drafted well and some badly, and the difference shapes everything after. Does yours say the arbitration will be administered by DIAC under its rules, or only that it'll be held in Delhi? One arbitrator or three? Does it let one party appoint the arbitrator alone? The Supreme Court's Constitution Bench held in Central Organisation for Railway Electrification v. ECI-SPIC-SMO-MCML (2024) that such a term offends equality between the parties. Is the seat Delhi, New Delhi, Gurugram or somewhere else? A lawyer who raises these within twenty minutes is reading your contract. One who answers in generalities isn't.

The clause also tells your lawyer whether you'll need the court before DIAC can act. Where it names DIAC, a claimant can usually file a Request for Arbitration with the Centre directly. Where it's an ad hoc clause and the other side won't cooperate, the road may run first through a Section 11 petition in the Delhi High Court. We've set out those routes in our note on taking a dispute to DIAC without a DIAC clause. A decent first meeting ends with you knowing which road is yours.

Check, too, whether the lawyer looked at the dates. Under Section 21, an arbitration commences on the day the respondent receives the notice invoking it, and the Limitation Act applies to arbitrations through Section 43 of the Act. For most money claims that means three years. Say your last invoice is two and a half years old and nobody has acknowledged the debt in writing since. The first advice you get should be to send the notice this week. Choosing arbitrators can wait.

Can they explain DIAC fees and deposits without jargon?

Plenty of DIAC cases are settled by fees before anyone sits down for a hearing. The 2018 fee rules set scales for arbitrators' fees in their Schedules, under Rule 3(i). Rule 3(ii) assesses the fee on the claim and counter claim added together, with a proviso that lets DIAC assess them separately and demand payment where a party won't pay its share. In Samsung India Electronics Pvt Ltd v. Delhi International Arbitration Centre (Delhi High Court, 18 March 2026), the court upheld a separate assessment where the respondent refused to pay its share of the fee on the main claim. DIAC can't force anyone to pay. But an unpaid claim or counter claim can be terminated under Rule 33.5.

Your lawyer should be able to take you through this with the current schedule open. DIAC publishes it on its website, and it runs off the sum in dispute. Ask for an estimate of the deposit on your claim and on the counter claim you're likely to face, and ask what you can do if the other side doesn't pay. Our notes on DIAC arbitration fees and on what happens if you miss a DIAC deposit go into the detail. Interim relief has its own wrinkle. Under DIAC's Practice Direction 01/2024, a party asking the tribunal for interim measures has to declare a tentative claim value and deposit a provisional part of the fees.

Be wary if a lawyer says fees can wait, or mixes up the tribunal's fee with his own professional fee. They're different things. The tribunal's fee and DIAC's administrative charges go to the Centre, while your lawyer's fee is a private agreement between you and the advocate. You should understand both before you commit.

Who'll actually draft, appear and cross-examine?

In a lot of Delhi chambers, the advocate you meet isn't the one who writes your statement of claim. That's normal. Often it's sensible, since a long pleading with fifty annexures is team work. What you need is the structure. Ask who'll draft, who'll check the draft, who'll attend procedural hearings and who'll cross-examine the other side's witnesses. Ask whether a senior advocate will be briefed for final arguments, and if so, when that call gets made and how the senior's fee will be agreed.

Continuity counts for more in arbitration than in court. A DIAC tribunal sees the same faces at every sitting. It remembers what each side said last time. Counsel who turns up fresh at the evidence stage, with no feel for the earlier procedural orders, can lose ground in small ways that add up over months. Look for a team where at least one advocate stays with the matter from the Request to the award.

Cross-examination needs its own question. In most DIAC matters, evidence in chief comes in by affidavit, so the real contest is the cross, recorded by a stenographer or in the tribunal's minutes. Ask how the lawyer gets ready for it. Is there a document bundle for each witness? Will they take your input on the commercial facts? Do they keep it short? There's no correct script. There should be a method you can follow, though.

Conflicts, the DIAC panel and why both matter

DIAC appoints arbitrators from its panel of retired judges, senior advocates and technical experts. Some practising lawyers sit on that panel as arbitrators in other cases. That's allowed, but it brings disclosure duties. Section 12 of the Act requires an arbitrator to disclose in writing anything likely to raise justifiable doubts about independence or impartiality. The Fifth and Seventh Schedules list relationships, including ones with a party's counsel, that must be disclosed or that disqualify outright. Under Section 13, a challenge on such grounds has to be made within 15 days of learning the facts.

Ask two things, then. Has the lawyer run a conflict check on the other side and its group companies? And when names from the DIAC panel come up, does the lawyer have any professional or personal link with them that the arbitrator would need to disclose? An honest answer protects you. A hidden link can mean a challenge, weeks of delay, or a Section 34 petition years down the line. How DIAC picks arbitrators is covered in our note on DIAC arbitrator appointment and the panel.

Walk away from anyone who hints they can get you a particular arbitrator, or claims to know how some panel member thinks. It's improper. It's usually untrue as well. For a sole arbitrator under the DIAC process, each side gives names and a common name is preferred. If there isn't one, the Centre appoints. Nobody controls that.

Time and money at each stage of a DIAC case, leaving out the lawyer's fee

Warning signs at the first meeting

• He promises you'll get an award, or that it'll come within so many months.
• Nobody asks to see the arbitration clause before talking strategy.
• No one asks when the money fell due, or whether a Section 21 notice has gone out.
• The DIAC deposit gets brushed off as a formality. Or it's never mentioned at all.
• There's a hint that the lawyer can influence who gets appointed as arbitrator.
• The counter claim you're likely to face doesn't come up once.
• You're offered a fee as a share of whatever you recover. Advocates in India can't charge a fee that depends on the result.
• By the end you still don't know who'll actually draft and appear for you.

What to carry to the first meeting

How Advocate B.K. Singh's team goes through the papers at a first meeting

When a DIAC file comes to Advocate B.K. Singh's team, the first meeting begins with the clause. The grievance can wait half an hour. We read the arbitration clause for the seat, the institution, the number of arbitrators and any appointment term that might be invalid. Then the papers go on the table in date order, so the limitation position and the date of any Section 21 notice are plain to see. Next comes the money. We match it invoice by invoice against the ledger and the bank entries, to reach a figure you can put in a claim without having to correct it later. After that we look for what the other side is going to say. Usually its own emails tell us. From those we estimate a counter claim. Only then do we get to the DIAC deposit, the likely timetable and whether mediation is worth trying first. You leave with a short written note on these points and the papers still missing. Show it to anyone else you consult. That's what it's for.

Questions to put to a DIAC advocate, and what a sound answer sounds like

• Is my dispute arbitrable at DIAC under this clause? A sound answer quotes your clause back to you and says whether you can file straight at DIAC or have to go to court first.
• Roughly what will the DIAC deposit be, for each side? A sound answer works from the current DIAC schedule and the sum in dispute, likely counter claim included, and admits it's an estimate.
• Where do I stand on limitation? You should hear the date the money fell due, any acknowledgment or part payment since, and the date by which the Section 21 notice has to reach the other side.
• What's the other side going to say? Good answers get specific: delay, quality, a set-off, a counter claim for liquidated damages, maybe a jurisdiction objection under Section 16.
• Should I try mediation first? A sound answer weighs the relationship, the other side's money position, and whether limitation or time pressure leaves room for it.
• If I win, how do I actually get paid? Listen for the other side's assets, interest under Section 31(7), costs under Section 31A, the Section 34 window and execution under Section 36.
• How will you keep me informed? A sound answer describes a habit, say a note after every hearing, a calendar of deadlines and deposits, and one person you can ring.

Shortlisting and engaging counsel in roughly a week

This sequence works for a business that's just received a DIAC notice, or one that wants to start a claim.

1. Sort the papers by date

   Give it a day. Pull the contract, notices, invoices, ledger and emails into one folder, physical or on a drive, in date order. A lawyer gets through a tidy file in an hour. A messy one takes days, and you end up paying for those days.

2. Write a one-page note on the dispute

   What was agreed, what went wrong, what you say is owed, what they say. Leave out opinions. Put in dates. This note later turns into the list of dates in any pleading.

3. See two lawyers with the same file

   Hand each the same papers and the same note. Watching two advocates read one file tells you more than any reputation or website could. Put the questions above to both.

4. Ask each for a short note afterwards

   One or two pages on the clause, limitation, the likely deposit, the likely defence and next steps. You can then lay the advice side by side. It also shows you how clearly each lawyer thinks.

5. Fix the scope and fee in writing

   Sign an engagement letter setting out the work stage by stage, the fee for each stage, who appears, and how expenses and DIAC deposits will be dealt with. The vakalatnama comes after that.

6. Diarise the first deadline the same day

   If you're the respondent, your time to answer the Request is already running. If you're the claimant, the limitation date and the Section 21 notice come first. Agree them in writing with your lawyer that day.

Thinking of changing counsel halfway through a DIAC case? Run the same checks, plus one more. Make sure the outgoing lawyer hands over the full DIAC file, procedural orders and deposit receipts included, and that the tribunal gets a fresh vakalatnama before the next sitting.

Where your DIAC case, and the court work around it, will be heard

The arbitration itself runs at DIAC, inside the Delhi High Court premises on Sher Shah Road in New Delhi. Preliminary hearings these days are mostly online. But a DIAC case often drags court work along with it, and your lawyer should be at ease in both places. Interim measures before the tribunal is formed are sought from the court under Section 9. Appointment fights go to the High Court under Section 11. A challenge to the award is a Section 34 petition. Enforcement is under Section 36.

Which court hears that work turns on the seat and the value. Section 10 of the Commercial Courts Act, 2015 sends Section 34 petitions and execution in commercial-value arbitrations to the Commercial Division of a High Court with original jurisdiction, or to the Commercial Court. In Delhi, matters above Rs 2 crore go to the Commercial Division of the Delhi High Court. Smaller ones go to the district Commercial Courts, at Saket, Tis Hazari, Karkardooma and the other district complexes. A proposal to raise that limit has been under consideration, so check where it stands today. Appeals under Section 37 go to the Commercial Appellate Division.

If you run a business in Noida, Ghaziabad or Gurugram, your office address matters less than the seat in the clause. With a Delhi seat, the Delhi courts supervise the arbitration even when both companies work across the border. That's one reason a lawyer who's regularly in the Delhi High Court and the Delhi district courts is handy. Still, the deciding test is how well they read your papers.

Does a claimant need a different lawyer from a respondent?

The skills overlap. The first few weeks don't. A claimant's lawyer has to build: gather the documents, work out the claim with figures an arbitrator can follow, and file a statement of claim that answers the obvious defence before it's raised. A respondent's lawyer has to move fast first and build afterwards. That means checking jurisdiction and limitation, deciding whether to object under Section 16, preparing the defence, and asking whether a counter claim is worth the extra deposit it brings.

Your line of business matters too. A supplier with unpaid invoices usually needs tight figures and interest workings. A contractor in a construction fight needs someone at home with measurement books, delay analysis and experts. A startup in a shareholder or service dispute often needs to hear whether a full DIAC arbitration is worth the cost at all. If you're a micro or small enterprise registered under the MSMED Act, 2006, there may be another route through the MSME Facilitation Council, and our comparison of DIAC and the MSME Council sets the two side by side. Government contractors have their own problem. Their standard-form clauses often have to be read against the 2024 Constitution Bench ruling on unilateral appointments.

Not sure arbitration is even the right forum? Maybe the clause is shaky, or the other side has no assets in India. Ask about that first. Our note on choosing between DIAC arbitration and a commercial court suit explains how people usually decide. For arbitration outside DIAC, including ad hoc cases seated elsewhere, there's more on our network site arbitrationlawyer.in.

How should fees for DIAC work be fixed?

An advocate's fee is a matter of agreement, and Bar Council rules don't allow one that depends on the outcome. For DIAC work, the sensible way is a written engagement letter that splits the matter into stages: the notice and Request, pleadings, admission and denial, evidence, final arguments, and any court work under Sections 9, 11, 34 or 36. Each stage carries its own fee. The letter should also say what happens if a stage runs longer than planned. Lots of witnesses, for instance.

List expenses separately. That means DIAC's administrative charges, the arbitrators' fee deposits, stenography, courier, witness travel and, where needed, a senior advocate's fee. Keep every receipt for money paid to DIAC. Costs can be claimed in the arbitration, and under Section 31A the general rule is that costs follow the event, though the tribunal keeps a discretion. With us, fees come up at the first meeting and are agreed in writing, one stage at a time. Our process and fees page explains how, without quoting figures.

What to do this week

If you're the respondent, find the date you received the Request or the DIAC notice and count the response period from there. That's your first deadline. Let it set the pace of your choice. If you're the claimant, work out the limitation date from the last payment or written acknowledgment, and get the Section 21 notice to the other side well before it.

Then sort the papers by date, write the one-page note and see two lawyers with the same file. Ask each to read the clause in front of you, to estimate the DIAC deposit on your claim and the likely counter claim, and to say who'll appear. The claim and defence work our team takes on is described on our DIAC arbitration lawyer page. Once counsel's in place and the first sitting is coming up, our list of questions to ask before your first DIAC hearing will help.

Want your contract, notices and correspondence looked at before you pick counsel or file anything? Book a consultation and share them with Advocate B.K. Singh's team through the contact page.