Section 29A: The Twelve-Month Deadline to Make an Arbitral Award

A domestic arbitral award in India must be made within twelve months from the date on which the pleadings are completed, and the parties may add a further six months by consent. Once that eighteen month outer window closes, only a court can grant more time, and until it does the mandate of the tribunal stands terminated. That, in three sentences, is the Section 29A arbitration time limit, and it is the single provision that unsettles more Indian arbitrations than any other.

Section 29A was inserted into the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 by the 2015 amendment (Act 3 of 2016, with effect from 23 October 2015) and then substantially recast by Act 33 of 2019 with effect from 30 August 2019. The idea was admirable: Indian arbitrations had a reputation for drifting for years, so Parliament put a statutory clock on the tribunal. The execution has been messier, because a hard deadline attached to a private adjudicatory process produces satellite litigation about the deadline itself.

What the Section 29A arbitration time limit actually says

Read as it stands today, Section 29A of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 works in layers.

Sub-section (1) requires that the award "in matters other than international commercial arbitration shall be made by the arbitral tribunal within a period of twelve months from the date of completion of pleadings under sub-section (4) of section 23". A proviso deals separately with international commercial arbitration, and is discussed below.

Sub-section (2) is a carrot rather than a stick: if the award is made within six months from the date the tribunal enters upon the reference, the tribunal is entitled to such additional fees as the parties may agree.

Sub-section (3) permits the parties, by consent, to extend the twelve months by a further period not exceeding six months. That is a party power, not a tribunal power.

Sub-section (4) is the sharp edge. If the award is not made within the period under sub-section (1) or the extended period under sub-section (3), the mandate of the arbitrator or arbitrators terminates, unless the court has, either prior to or after the expiry of the period so specified, extended it. Three provisos follow. The court may cut the arbitrator's fees by up to five per cent for each month of delay if it finds the delay attributable to the tribunal. Where an application under sub-section (5) is pending, the mandate continues until that application is disposed of. And the arbitrator must be heard before any fee reduction is ordered.

Sub-sections (5) to (9) supply the machinery: an extension may be granted only on a party's application and only for sufficient cause; the court may substitute one or all of the arbitrators while extending time; the reconstituted tribunal is deemed a continuation of the earlier one; the court may impose actual or exemplary costs; and the application is to be decided, so far as possible, within sixty days of service.

The provision works in layers, and each layer does a different job.

When the clock starts running

This is where most parties get it wrong. The twelve months does not run from the date the arbitrator accepts appointment, nor from the first procedural hearing. It runs from the completion of pleadings under Section 23(4), which itself says the statement of claim and defence must be completed within six months from the date the arbitrator or all the arbitrators received written notice of their appointment.

Stacked end to end, the statute therefore contemplates roughly six months for pleadings, twelve months for the award, and six more months by consent. In an arbitration that uses every day available, that is about twenty four months from the arbitrator's notice of appointment before a court has to be approached.

Key takeaway. Diarise two dates at the very first procedural hearing: the date pleadings close, and that date plus twelve months. Almost every Section 29A crisis begins with a file in which nobody wrote down when pleadings actually closed.

A practical wrinkle: "completion of pleadings" is not defined, and tribunals differ on whether a rejoinder, or a counterclaim and its reply, forms part of the pleadings. The safer course is to record in a procedural order the date on which the tribunal treats the pleadings as complete. That single line removes the argument later.

Note also a state variation. For the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, the adaptation orders of 2020 substituted sub-section (1) so that the twelve months runs from the date the tribunal enters upon the reference.

The six month consent extension under Section 29A(3)

The parties may agree to extend by up to six months. Two points matter in practice. First, the extension must be by consent of the parties, so a tribunal cannot grant itself more time and a unilateral request will not do. Second, the consent should be recorded in writing, ideally in a procedural order signed off by both sides, because when an extension application later reaches court the first question asked is whether the sub-section (3) extension was validly taken and from what date.

Common mistake. Treating the six month consent extension as something the tribunal can order on its own, or assuming it happens automatically once twelve months pass. It does not. It requires an actual agreement between the parties, and it caps at six months.

What happens when the time expires

If neither the twelve months nor the consent extension covers the position, the mandate of the tribunal terminates unless a court extends the period. An award made after the mandate has terminated, with no extension, is exposed to challenge. For a long time High Courts were also split on a narrower question: could the extension application be filed after the period had lapsed, or did it have to be filed before? The Calcutta High Court, followed by Patna, said it had to come before expiry. Several other High Courts disagreed.

Rohan Builders: an application filed after expiry is maintainable

The Supreme Court settled this in Rohan Builders (India) Private Limited v. Berger Paints India Limited, decided on 12 September 2024, neutral citation 2024 INSC 686. The Court held that an application for extension under Section 29A(4) read with Section 29A(5) is maintainable even after the expiry of the twelve month or the extended six month period. The reasoning turns on the words of sub-section (4) itself, which expressly contemplate a court extending the period "either prior to or after the expiry of the period so specified", and on reading "terminate" as a conditional rather than absolute cessation.

The judgment is not, however, a licence for delay. The Court was explicit that the power to extend is to be exercised only where there is sufficient cause, and that extensions are not to be granted mechanically on the mere filing of an application. Tribunals and parties who allow the clock to lapse should expect to explain themselves, and should expect the court to look at who caused the delay.

Deadline warning. An application filed after expiry may be maintainable, but the second proviso to Section 29A(4) only preserves the mandate while an application is pending. If no application has been filed and time has run out, there is a gap during which the tribunal has no live mandate. Do not let the tribunal keep hearing the matter on the assumption that an application filed next month will retrospectively cure everything.

Which court do you approach for an extension

The next fight was over the word "Court". Where a High Court had appointed the arbitrator under Section 11, several benches took the view that only that High Court could extend time. Others held that the ordinary definition in Section 2(1)(e) governed.

The Supreme Court resolved this in Jagdeep Chowgule v. Sheela Chowgule, decided on 29 January 2026 (neutral citation 2026 INSC 92). The Court held that the "Court" for a Section 29A application is the court as defined in Section 2(1)(e), that is, the principal civil court of original jurisdiction in a district, including a High Court exercising ordinary original civil jurisdiction, and in international commercial arbitration the High Court. A High Court that appointed the arbitrator under Section 11 does not thereby acquire continuing supervisory jurisdiction, because its role under Section 11 is exhausted once the tribunal is constituted. On the facts, the Supreme Court restored a Commercial Court's order extending time. For a party in Bengaluru that usually means the Commercial Court of appropriate pecuniary jurisdiction rather than the High Court of Karnataka, unless the arbitration is an international commercial arbitration.

Domestic, international and fast track compared

International commercial arbitration is treated differently

The 2019 amendment carved international commercial arbitration out of the mandatory timeline. In TATA Sons Pvt Ltd v. Siva Industries and Holdings Ltd, decided on 17 January 2023 and reported as 2023 LiveLaw (SC) 38, the Supreme Court held that the twelve month limit in Section 29A does not apply to international commercial arbitration, where the tribunal is only required to endeavour to conclude within that period. The Court also treated the amended provision as applicable to pending arbitrations. So the first question in any Section 29A analysis is whether the arbitration is international commercial arbitration within Section 2(1)(f), because if it is, the deadline conversation looks entirely different.

Three Supreme Court rulings settle most Section 29A arguments before they start.

Fee reduction, substitution of the arbitrator and costs

Beyond granting or refusing time, Section 29A gives the court three levers. It may reduce the arbitrator's fees by up to five per cent per month of delay attributable to the tribunal, after hearing the arbitrator. It may substitute one or all of the arbitrators while extending time, with the proceedings continuing from the stage reached on the existing record, so no evidence is led afresh. And it may impose actual or exemplary costs, including on the party asking for time.

How an extension application is made

1. Fix the dates. Identify the date pleadings were completed under Section 23(4), the resulting twelve month expiry, and whether a valid consent extension under Section 29A(3) was taken and for how long.
2. Identify the correct court under Section 2(1)(e), applying Jagdeep Chowgule, rather than assuming the Section 11 appointing court retains jurisdiction.
3. Prepare the application under Section 29A(4) read with Section 29A(5), setting out the procedural history hearing by hearing and pinning the reasons for delay to specific causes.
4. Annex the arbitration agreement, the appointment correspondence, the procedural orders recording closure of pleadings, and the record of any consent extension.
5. Serve the opposite party. Section 29A(9) contemplates disposal within sixty days from service, so early and provable service matters.
6. Be ready to propose a concrete completion schedule. Courts respond better to a request for a defined further period with a timetable than to an open ended prayer.
7. If a fee reduction or substitution is likely to be raised, ensure the arbitrator has notice, since the third proviso requires the arbitrator to be heard before fees are reduced.

Indicative cost and time

Costs vary with the forum, the seniority of counsel and whether the application is contested. Purely as an indicative range, an uncontested extension application before a Commercial Court may involve professional fees in the region of a few tens of thousands of rupees plus court fees and incidentals, while a contested application with a jurisdictional objection can run to several times that. Section 29A(9) sets a sixty day endeavour, but a realistic expectation is anywhere from a few weeks to several months depending on the docket and on whether the other side opposes. None of this is a promise.

A note from practice

The pattern we see most often is not deliberate delay. It is drift. Pleadings close, a few hearings get adjourned for genuine reasons, an expert report takes longer than expected, and one day somebody realises the eighteen months went past two hearings ago. The fix is boring and it works: record the closure of pleadings in a procedural order, put the twelve month and eighteen month dates in the same order, and have the tribunal ask at every hearing whether the timeline still holds. Where an extension is genuinely needed, applying early and with a clear schedule is markedly easier than applying late and explaining a lapse. Rohan Builders removed the maintainability trap, but it did not remove the need to show sufficient cause.

If you are working through the wider arbitration process, our notes on appointment of an arbitrator under Section 11, setting aside an arbitral award under Section 34 and the limitation period for a Section 34 challenge deal with the stages either side of this one. You can also read more about our work in arbitration and alternative dispute resolution.

Related guides and where to get help

If this is a live problem rather than background reading, our arbitration and ADR practice handles these matters from Bengaluru, including for clients who cannot attend court in person. These guides go deeper on the neighbouring questions:

• Setting Aside an Arbitral Award Under Section 34
• Section 9 vs Section 17 Arbitration: Interim Relief
• Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Award in India

Frequently Asked Questions

This article is for general information and is not legal advice. The position stated is as at the date of publication and litigation outcomes depend on the facts of each matter.