THE AUTHORS<\/strong>: When does an arbitral award become \u201cbinding\u201d for the purposes of the New York Convention<\/a>? Article V(1)(e) lets an enforcing court refuse recognition where the award \u201chas not yet become binding on the parties, or has been set aside or suspended by a competent authority of the country in which, or under the law of which, that award was made.\u201d The Convention does not define \u201cbinding\u201d. Practice has broadly settled that an award is binding once it is no longer open to ordinary recourse on the merits at the seat. A February 2026 ruling of the Supreme Court of India introduces an award that answers to none of the familiar descriptions, and the gap it opens for cross-border enforcement has not been examined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In C. Velusamy v. K. Indhera<\/a> (Supreme Court of India, 3 February 2026), the Court answered a narrow domestic question: may a court extend an arbitrator\u2019s mandate under Section 29A(5) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act 1996 even after the award has already been rendered, past the eighteen-month limit? It held that it may. In doing so, it characterised the award in unusually layered terms. Such an award, the Court said, is \u201cnon est\u201d; \u201ca better expression would be to hold that such an award would be unenforceable under Section 36\u201d; it is \u201cineffective and unenforceable\u201d; and, pointedly, it \u201cneed not be challenged under Section 34.\u201d Yet it is not a nullity: the court\u2019s power to extend the mandate \u201cis not impaired by such an indiscretion of the arbitrator,\u201d and once extended, the tribunal \u201cwill pick up the thread from where it was left.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Set aside the domestic debate about limitation and the route of challenge. The consequential question is how such award should be characterised for the purposes of international enforcement. It has been rendered. It is not void. It is, on the apex court\u2019s own description, not presently enforceable. It has not been set aside, and need not be challenged under Section 34 to remain unenforceable; that is its default condition until a court acts. That is a category the Convention\u2019s drafters did not contemplate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Section 29A\u2019s mandatory timeline does not apply to international commercial arbitrations seated in India. Section 29A(1), reproduced in the judgment itself, requires the award \u201cin matters other than international commercial arbitration\u201d to be made within twelve months, while an ICA award \u201cmay be made as expeditiously as possible.\u201d The arbitration in Velusamy<\/em> was domestic. The analysis that follows, therefore, bites on domestic Indian awards taken abroad for enforcement, and on arbitrations where parties have contractually imported a Section 29A-type timeline. A purely contractual missed deadline in an ICA to which Section 29A does not apply is a different matter: it typically generates a jurisdictional defect challengeable under Article V(1)(c) or (d), not the statutory limbo Velusamy<\/em> describes, and falls outside the scope of this analysis. For domestic Indian awards, the class of affected cases is neither marginal nor hypothetical: such awards are routinely enforced against debtors with assets in Singapore, the DIFC<\/a>, the United Kingdom, and the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A creditor holding such an award and pursuing assets abroad faces a defence that did not exist before. The debtor can tell the enforcing court: under the law of the country where this award was made, this award is, by that country\u2019s own apex court\u2019s characterisation, not presently enforceable and has not become binding; recognition should be refused, or at least adjourned. None of Article V(1)(e)\u2019s three limbs maps cleanly. The award has not been \u201cset aside\u201d – Velusamy<\/em> is explicit that Section 34 is not the route. Whether it has \u201cbecome binding\u201d turns on a concept the Convention deliberately left autonomous, precisely so that enforcing courts would not be captive to idiosyncratic seat-law labels. And whether it has been \u201csuspended\u201d is, on this judgment\u2019s own materials, a live question rather than a closed one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That last point deserves precision. The Court grounds its reasoning in the 176th Law Commission Report, which it quotes at length. The Report describes the mechanism in these terms: once the time limit lapses, \u201cthe arbitration proceedings will nearly stand suspended and will get revived as soon as any party\u2026 files an application in the Court for extension of time.\u201d A debtor resisting enforcement abroad will reach for that language, and not without some descriptive justification. But the \u201csuspended\u201d limb of Article V(1)(e) conventionally requires a positive act of a competent authority staying a valid, existing award; a condition of statutory ineffectiveness from the moment of rendering is a different thing. The stronger Convention argument runs under \u201cnot yet become binding\u201d: an award that the seat\u2019s own apex court calls \u201cineffective and unenforceable\u201d pending judicial action has not yet achieved the status the Convention presupposes when it speaks of a binding award. The Law Commission quote supports rather than displaces this reading – it confirms that the award cannot be treated as operative until a court acts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The intuitive answer is that the creditor simply obtains the Section 29A extension, the award is retrospectively sustained, and the difficulty evaporates. That is too quick, for two reasons. First, timing: between rendering and revival, there is a window in which the award is, on India\u2019s own account, ineffective and unenforceable; enforcement sought, or resisted, in that window engages Article V(1)(e) on its face. Second, and more fundamentally, it is not settled that a domestic retroactive revival relates back for Convention purposes. \u201cBinding\u201d under Article V(1)(e) carries an autonomous Convention meaning; it is widely understood not to be simply whatever the seat court declares at a later date. A subsequent Indian order reviving the award answers the award\u2019s status in Indian execution proceedings; it does not automatically answer whether, at the date enforcement was sought abroad, the award had \u201cbecome binding\u201d within the Convention. An enforcing court may treat the seat-law revival as decisive, or it may not. There is no authority either way, because the situation is new.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A foreign court applying Article V(1)(e) usually resolves the \u201cbinding\u201d question by reference to the law of the seat – a move that assumes the seat\u2019s law gives a stable answer. On Section 29A, it does not. Velusamy<\/em> itself strings together a sequence of recent Supreme Court decisions – Rohan Builders<\/em>, Lancor Holdings,<\/em> and Jagdeep Chowgule<\/em> to deliver a ten-point restatement of what Section 29A now means, including an express rejection of the High Court line treating a late award as a \u201cnullity.\u201d The doctrine is being actively rebuilt. An enforcing court cannot defer to a settled Indian answer on when a late award is binding, because there is no settled answer; there is a moving one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For award-creditors: a domestic Indian award rendered against the clock now carries a latent cross-border vulnerability that did not previously exist. The cure is that a Section 29A extension is best obtained before, not alongside, enforcement abroad. Where a Section 29A application is pending in India at the time enforcement is pursued in a Convention jurisdiction, Article VI of the Convention gives the enforcing court explicit discretion to adjourn enforcement proceedings and order security pending the Indian court\u2019s decision; a debtor aware of that pending application will invoke Article VI immediately, and is entitled to do so. For award-debtors with assets abroad: Velusamy<\/em> has handed them an Article V(1)(e) argument that is novel, untested, and therefore worth raising in any jurisdiction that interprets \u201cbinding\u201d with reference to the seat\u2019s law. Jurisdictions taking a more autonomous approach to the seat\u2019s label as some civilian systems do under Article VII\u2019s more-favourable-right provision – may reach a different answer, but that latitude is unlikely to extend to Singapore, the UK, or the US. For everyone advising on India-seated arbitration with a statutory or contractual deadline: the space between an award that is \u201cnot void\u201d and an award that is \u201cbinding\u201d is no longer academic. It is a place an award can now occupy, and the Convention does not yet know what to do with an award in that position. Velusamy<\/em> resolved an Indian procedural question and, without intending to, created an international one it had no occasion to see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ABOUT THE AUTHORS<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Sudhir Saruparia<\/strong> is an advocate practicing before the Rajasthan High Court at Jodhpur<\/strong> with close to three decades of experience in constitutional, civil, criminal, and writ litigation. Over the course of his practice, he has appeared in a broad spectrum of appellate and original proceedings before single and division benches, representing individuals, corporations, and institutional litigants in complex disputes involving statutory interpretation and public law questions. Based in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, his practice is marked by extensive courtroom advocacy, long-standing engagement with High Court litigation, and a nuanced understanding of procedural and strategic aspects of Indian dispute resolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sudhir Saruparia<\/strong>, Advocate, Rajasthan High Court
Kshitij Saruparia<\/strong><\/strong>, Advocate, Rajasthan High Court<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nA Necessary Scoping Point<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Article V(1)(e) Problem<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Why Retroactive Revival Does Not Dissolve the Problem<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Flux Compounds It<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
What This Means in Practice<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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