Arbitration is a form of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) in which parties agree to have a neutral arbitrator, rather than a court, decide their dispute, instead of presenting evidence to a judge in a courtroom.
After considering the evidence, the arbitrator issues a decision called an arbitral award, which is legally binding and enforceable in much the same way as a court judgment.
Online arbitration follows largely the same process as offline arbitration, the main difference is the channel of communication. In India, this process is governed by the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, as amended in 2015, 2019, and 2021.
Here's how it works in 12 steps. Assume there's an online portal, "sama.live," offering this service.
You're the complainant; the other side is the respondent.
1. File your complaint
You log onto the portal (www.sama.live), describe your dispute, provide the respondent's contact details, and upload supporting documents. Any personal data you submit at this stage is governed by the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, and the DPDP Rules, 2025.
A properly run portal should give you a clear, standalone notice explaining what it does with your data before you upload anything, rather than folding it into a general disclaimer [1].
2. The portal notifies the respondent, who must consent
The respondent is contacted and asked to accept arbitration. Mutual consent to the process is a non-negotiable prerequisite for any ADR procedure.
Where the dispute is between a business and a consumer, this consent needs to be real and specific to the dispute at hand.
The Supreme Court held in M. Hemalatha Devi v. B. Udayasri (2024) 4 SCC 255 that a consumer cannot be compelled into arbitration simply because a website's Terms of Service contained an arbitration clause they clicked through at sign-up [2].
The consumer's acceptance of arbitration at this step, after the dispute has actually arisen, is what makes the process valid.
3. Arbitrator selection
The portal maintains a panel of arbitrators with listed expertise and experience. Each party typically selects one arbitrator, and the two co-arbitrators (or the parties by consensus) select a third.
The total number of arbitrators must be odd, this is a statutory requirement under Section 10(1) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996.
Where a portal has discretion to appoint a sole arbitrator on the parties' behalf, that discretion needs to sit with a genuinely neutral party.
In November 2024, a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court held in Central Organisation for Railway Electrification v. ECI-SPIC-SMO-MCML (JV) that a party with an interest in the outcome of a dispute cannot unilaterally appoint the sole arbitrator, or restrict the other side's choice to a panel that party alone has curated, since this breaches the principle of equal treatment between the parties under Section 18 of the Arbitration Act [3].
A platform that is independent of both disputants can administer an appointment process the way an arbitral institution does; a platform effectively controlled by or affiliated with one side of the dispute cannot.
4. Statement of claims
You file your statement of claims and upload supporting documents.
5. Statement of defence
The respondent reviews the claim and files a statement of defence along with supporting documents.
6. Counterclaims and replies
Counterclaims and replies to counterclaims are filed and uploaded.
7. Additional evidence
Both parties are given the opportunity to submit any further evidence.
8. Admissibility, verification, and affidavits
Evidence is reviewed, and each party can verify or challenge the other's submissions. Affidavits are filed by both sides. Under Section 19(1) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, the arbitral tribunal itself is not bound by the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, or the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 (now the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023), the tribunal has discretion to determine what evidence to admit and how much weight to give it [4].
That flexibility doesn't extend to a later court proceeding, though: if a document's authenticity is disputed and the matter reaches a court, for example, on a challenge to the eventual award under Section 34, the admissibility of electronic records in that court proceeding is governed by Section 63 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 (in force since 1 July 2024, replacing the earlier Section 65-B of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872).
The certificate required for electronic evidence generally needs to be signed by both the person responsible for the device that produced the record and an independent technical expert, and it must disclose the record's hash value [5]. It's worth capturing this certification when documents are first uploaded, rather than reconstructing it later.
9. Framing issues of contention
Both parties submit their respective issues of contention, the specific disputed questions between them.
10. Final issues and hearing date
The arbitrator frames the final issues, and a hearing date is set according to the convenience of both parties. This is governed by Sections 19 and 24 of the Arbitration Act, which give the arbitrator broad discretion over procedure.
11. Oral hearing, where needed
If the arbitrator cannot reach a decision on the documents alone, an oral hearing is held, typically by video conference, before an award is issued. Virtual hearings are well-established as legally valid under Sections 18, 19, and 24 of the Arbitration Act, and courts have treated video-conference hearings as equivalent to in-person hearings [6].
The Delhi High Court's Electronic Evidence and Video Conferencing Rules, 2025 formally extend this recognition to arbitration proceedings within its jurisdiction, alongside court proceedings [7].
The resulting award is a written document summarising the claims, the evidence considered, and the arbitrator's final decision.
12. Enforcing the award
Since this is institutionalised arbitration conducted through the portal, the award is legally binding on both parties once issued.
Section 36(1) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, provides: "Where the time for making an application to set aside the arbitral award under section 34 has expired, then, subject to the provisions of sub-section (2), such award shall be enforced in accordance with the provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, in the same manner as if it were a decree of the court" [8].
Enforcement itself is carried out through the courts, at the initiative of the party in whose favour the award was made.
Filing a Section 34 challenge does not, by itself, pause enforcement, since the 2015 amendment to the Act, a specific stay order from the court is required to halt enforcement while a challenge is pending [8].
The dispute itself is resolved without either party needing to appear in a courtroom, but if the losing side doesn't comply voluntarily, converting the award into something collectible runs through the court system, initiated by the party who won.
Endnotes
[1] "Government notifies DPDP Rules to empower citizens and protect privacy," Press Information Bureau, Government of India, 14 November 2025.
https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2190014®=3&lang=2
[2] M. Hemalatha Devi and Others v. B. Udayasri, Civil Appeal Nos. 6500–6501 of 2023, decided 5 October 2023 by the Supreme Court of India (reported at (2024) 4 SCC 255).
https://api.sci.gov.in/supremecourt/2023/5812/5812_2023_2_1501_47347_FinalOrder_05-Oct-2023.pdf
[3] Central Organisation for Railway Electrification v. ECI-SPIC-SMO-MCML (JV), Civil Appeal Nos. 9486-9487 of 2019 and connected matters, 2024 INSC 857, decided 8 November 2024 by a five-judge Constitution Bench (Chandrachud CJI, Roy, Narasimha, Pardiwala, and Misra JJ.).
https://api.sci.gov.in/supremecourt/2019/28531/28531_2019_1_1502_57055_Judgement_08-Nov-2024.pdf
[4] Section 19(1), Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996. For a summary, see "Conduct of Arbitral Proceeding: Section 19 of Arbitration and Conciliation Act," LawBhoomi,
https://lawbhoomi.com/conduct-of-arbitral-proceeding-section-19/
[5] Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023, Section 63 (admissibility of electronic records) and Section 1(2).
https://www.indiacode.nic.in/bitstream/123456789/20063/1/aa202347.pdf
[6] "Virtual Hearings in arbitrations in India," Lexology.
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=1c85d10b-e340-4dc7-8dfa-72ec3832bd04
[7] "Delhi High Court Notifies 'Electronic Evidence and Video Conferencing Rules, 2025,'" Jurishour.
https://www.jurishour.in/notification/electronic-evidence-video-conferencing-rules-2025/
[8] Section 36(1), Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996.
