Drafting a statement of claim and statement of defence

Drafting a statement of claim and statement of defence in an Indian arbitration is governed by Section 23 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, which requires the claimant to state the facts supporting its claim, the points at issue and the relief sought, and the respondent to answer them. Section 23(4), inserted by the Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) Act, 2019 with effect from 30 August 2019, requires pleadings to be completed within six months of the arbitrators receiving written notice of their appointment. The Delhi and Calcutta High Courts have since taken different views on whether that six-month period carries any consequence. Where a claimant files nothing at all, the Delhi High Court held in October 2025 that the resulting termination order is not an award, which changes the remedy available.

This article sets out what a statement of claim and a statement of defence must contain, and what recent judgments say about filing them late or not at all.

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The drafting standards themselves have been stable for years. What has moved is the law around timing and default, and that movement has come almost entirely from the High Courts rather than from any amendment to the statute. The operative law is still the 1996 Act as amended in 2015, 2019 and 2021.

Two questions account for most of the recent litigation. The first is whether the six-month deadline in Section 23(4) does anything if a tribunal ignores it. The second is what a claimant can do after its proceedings have been closed for failing to file. Both are addressed below, with the paragraph each holding was decided in.

Statutory basis under Section 23

The statutory basis for both pleadings is Section 23 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996. Section 23(1) requires the claimant to state “the facts supporting his claim, the points at issue and the relief or remedy sought”, and the respondent to state “his defence in respect of these particulars”, unless the parties have agreed on the required elements of those statements. The provision is short, and most of what governs good drafting is inference from it rather than text within it.

Section 23(2) allows the parties to submit with their statements all documents they consider relevant, or to add a reference to the documents or other evidence they will submit. Section 23(2A), which came from the 2015 amendment, entitles the respondent to file a counterclaim or plead a set-off, and requires the tribunal to adjudicate it if it falls within the scope of the arbitration agreement.

Two later sub-sections do the work that this article is concerned with. Section 23(3) permits either party to amend or supplement its claim or defence during the proceedings, unless the tribunal considers it inappropriate having regard to the delay in making the request. Section 23(4), inserted by Section 5 of the 2019 amendment, requires that the statements of claim and defence be completed within six months from the date the arbitrator or arbitrators received written notice of appointment.

The six-month rule does not stand alone. Section 6(a) of the same 2019 amendment substituted Section 29A(1), so that in matters other than international commercial arbitration the award must be made within twelve months from the date of completion of pleadings under Section 23(4). Completion of pleadings is therefore the event that starts the clock on the award itself, which is why the question of what that deadline means has been litigated. A sub-section by sub-section treatment of the provision, including its amendment history, is available in the iPleaders explainer on Section 23 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, and the earlier step of getting the tribunal constituted is covered in the piece on how to draft a notice invoking arbitration.

What a statement of claim must contain

A statement of claim must contain the facts supporting the claim, the points at issue and the relief sought, and in practice it carries several further elements that Section 23(1) does not spell out. It should identify the parties, the contract, and the arbitration agreement relied on. It should record how the tribunal came to be constituted, because a tribunal reading the file for the first time needs to see its own source of authority.

The factual narrative should be chronological and dated. A tribunal assessing breach works backwards from dates, and a claim that describes events without fixing them in time forces the tribunal to reconstruct the sequence from the annexures. Documents relied on should be listed and cross-referenced to the paragraphs that depend on them.

Interest and costs are separate claims and need their own basis. Interest may be contractual, statutory or awarded at the tribunal’s discretion under Section 31(7), and a claim that simply asks for interest without saying which of these applies invites a lower rate than the contract would have supported.

Quantifying heads of claim

Each head of claim should be quantified separately rather than aggregated into a single damages figure. This is the most common defect in Indian arbitration pleadings, and it is a defect the courts have noticed: a claim for general damages without a breakdown of the costs said to make it up gives the tribunal nothing to test.

The practical consequence is that an unparticularised claim tends to be reduced rather than refused outright. A tribunal that cannot trace a figure to a document will often award what it can trace, which is usually less. Quantification is therefore a recovery question, not a formatting one.

Framing the points at issue

The points at issue are the questions the tribunal must answer, and they are distinct from the factual narrative. A narrative says what happened; a point at issue says what the tribunal has to decide about what happened. Drafters frequently conflate the two and leave the tribunal to derive the issues itself.

Framing them explicitly serves a second purpose. The issues as pleaded set the outer limit of what the award can decide, and a claim that never framed an issue is difficult to sustain on challenge. A worked walkthrough of both documents, with sample structure, is available on the LawSikho blog. The same discipline of pleading with particulars carries over to commercial drafting generally, which the Skill Arbitrage piece on contract drafting for foreign clients approaches from the drafting side.

What a statement of defence must contain

A statement of defence must answer the claim paragraph by paragraph, admitting, denying, or stating that the respondent has no knowledge of each allegation. A general denial of the whole claim is treated as weak, because it does not tell the tribunal which facts are actually contested and leaves the respondent free to shift position later.

An evasive denial carries a similar risk. Denying a paragraph “as framed” without saying what the respondent says instead invites the tribunal to treat the underlying fact as effectively uncontested. The defence should also state the respondent’s own positive case, not merely dispute the claimant’s, because a tribunal choosing between two accounts needs a second account to choose.

Jurisdictional objections belong in the defence, and so does limitation. Section 16(2) requires that a plea that the tribunal lacks jurisdiction be raised not later than the submission of the statement of defence, and a respondent who holds the point back may find it unavailable afterwards. Limitation is a mixed question and is better pleaded with the facts that support it than asserted as a bare conclusion.

The counterclaim and set-off under Section 23(2A) are governed by a scope test rather than a subject-matter test. In State of Goa v. Praveen Enterprises, (2012) 12 SCC 581, the Supreme Court of India held that where an arbitration clause refers all disputes between the parties, the arbitrator has jurisdiction over counterclaims, and that a counterclaim is not barred merely because it was not raised in the earlier Section 11 proceedings. A fuller treatment of the defence side is available in the iPleaders guide to drafting the statement of defence in arbitration proceedings.

The six-month deadline and the split between the High Courts

The six-month deadline in Section 23(4) has produced two different answers from two High Courts, and the position is unsettled. The disagreement matters because Section 29A(1) measures the twelve-month award period from the completion of pleadings, so the characterisation of the earlier deadline affects the later one.

The Delhi view: completion of pleadings starts the award clock

In M/s Raj Chawla and Co. Stock and Share Brokers v. M/s Nine Media and Information Services Ltd., decided on 30 January 2023 (O.M.P.(T)(COMM.) 93/2022, neutral citation 2023/DHC/000580), the Delhi High Court read the two provisions together. At paragraph 13 the Court stated that “Section 29 A (1) stipulates that the award must be rendered within twelve months from the date of completion of pleadings under Section 23(4).”

That linkage is the holding. Commentators have read the judgment as treating the six-month period in Section 23(4) as mandatory, and the reasoning is capable of supporting that reading, but the Court’s own language ties the consequence to the award timeline rather than declaring the pleadings deadline mandatory in terms. The distinction is worth preserving, because a tribunal asked to apply Raj Chawla is being asked to apply what the Court said.

The Calcutta view: directory, because no consequence is prescribed

The Calcutta High Court reached the opposite conclusion in Yashovardhan Sinha HUF v. Satyatej Vyapaar Pvt. Ltd., decided on 19 February 2024 in C.O. No. 4125 of 2023. The Court reasoned from the absence of a stated consequence, holding at paragraphs 44 and 45 that “the law is well settled that ordinarily, when the expression ‘shall’ is used, it is mandatory in nature, but even after the use of expression ‘shall’, if the statute is silent about the consequences of the non-compliance of such provision, it cannot be held that the provision is mandatory. Consequences of not adhering to the time limit prescribed in Section 23(4) of the Act, has not been provided in the Act.”

At paragraph 54 the Court addressed the legislative purpose directly, observing that “Section 23(4) was introduced while amending the Act, to ensure that the pleadings should be completed expeditiously, preferably within the time prescribed”, and that “had the intention of the legislature been to incorporate a mandatory provision for completion of pleadings within six months as per Section 23(4), the consequence of non-compliance would have been provided in the statute itself.”

Working with an unsettled position

For a drafter the practical answer does not depend on which view prevails. The downside is asymmetric: completing pleadings within six months costs nothing if the provision is directory, while overrunning costs the party its position if a tribunal applies the stricter view. Treating the period as a real deadline is the lower-risk course regardless of the seat.

Where an extension is genuinely needed, it should be taken on the record by consent and reflected in a procedural order rather than allowed to happen by drift. That produces something to point to if the timeline is later questioned. The draft Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) Bill, 2024, released by the Department of Legal Affairs for public consultation on 18 October 2024, does not resolve the question. It remains a draft and has not been introduced in Parliament, as set out in the iPleaders piece on the Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) Bill, 2024.

Failure to file, and what the court will do about it

A claimant that files no statement of claim at all faces termination under Section 25(a), and the Delhi High Court clarified in October 2025 what that termination is and how it can be challenged. In Mecwel Constructions Pvt. Ltd. v. GE Power Systems India Pvt. Ltd., decided on 14 October 2025 (neutral citation 2025:DHC:9326), the claimant had failed to file its statement of claim and to pay its share of the arbitral fees despite repeated opportunities, and the arbitrator closed the proceedings.

The Court held at paragraph 19 that “an order under Section 25(a) does not and cannot amount to an Award as it does not deal with the rights of the parties before the Arbitrator. Such an order merely terminates the arbitral proceedings on account of the claimant’s default in filing the statement of claim”. It went on in the same paragraph to explain the test: “for an order to qualify as an Award, it must decide, either finally or on an interim, an issue forming part of the dispute referred to arbitration. An order under Section 25(a), being procedural in nature and not addressing the substantive lis between the parties, lacks the essential attributes of an Arbitral Award.”

The consequence is a change of forum, not merely of label. Because the order is not an award, Section 34 is not the route to challenge it, and the Court identified Section 14(2) as the provision that applies. A party that files a Section 34 petition against a Section 25(a) order is in the wrong proceeding, and the limitation period under Section 34(3) may run out while the error is corrected.

On the facts the Court revived the arbitration before the same arbitrator. Default at the pleadings stage is therefore recoverable, but recovery depends on filing the right application, which makes this a drafting and procedure point rather than a purely academic one.

Section 25 in outline

Section 25 deals with three different defaults and treats them differently. Section 25(a) covers the claimant who fails to communicate its statement of claim under Section 23(1), and permits the tribunal to terminate the proceedings.

Section 25(b) covers the respondent who fails to communicate a statement of defence, and the tribunal continues the proceedings without treating that failure as an admission of the claimant’s allegations. Section 25(c) covers a party who fails to appear at a hearing or to produce documentary evidence, and allows the tribunal to continue and make the award on the evidence before it. The asymmetry is deliberate: a silent claimant stops the arbitration, while a silent respondent does not.

Amending a statement of claim or defence

Section 23(3) allows either party to amend or supplement its claim or defence during the arbitral proceedings, unless the tribunal considers it inappropriate having regard to the delay in making it. The test the sub-section names is delay, and delay is the foremost consideration, though the wording does not confine the tribunal to that single ground.

Timing drives the outcome more than the merits of the proposed amendment. An amendment sought before evidence begins is usually manageable, because the other side can still meet it in its own pleading. An amendment sought after evidence has been led asks the tribunal to reopen a stage it has closed, and refusal becomes considerably more likely.

There is a further constraint that sits outside Section 23(3). An amendment that introduces a claim falling outside the scope of the arbitration agreement does not become arbitrable merely because the tribunal allows the amendment, and the scope test in Praveen Enterprises continues to apply to the amended claim.

Frequently asked questions

What is the time limit for filing a statement of claim in arbitration?

Section 23(4) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 requires the statements of claim and defence to be completed within six months from the date on which the arbitrator or all the arbitrators received written notice of their appointment. The sub-section was inserted by the Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) Act, 2019 with effect from 30 August 2019. The tribunal usually fixes the individual filing dates within that outer period in its first procedural order.

Is the six-month period under Section 23(4) mandatory?

The position is unsettled. The Calcutta High Court held in Yashovardhan Sinha HUF v. Satyatej Vyapaar Pvt. Ltd. (19 February 2024) that the provision is directory, because the Act prescribes no consequence for non-compliance. The Delhi High Court in Raj Chawla and Co. v. Nine Media and Information Services Ltd. (30 January 2023) tied the completion of pleadings to the twelve-month award period under Section 29A(1), and that judgment has been read as supporting a stricter view. Until the question is settled, completing pleadings within six months is the safer course.

What happens if the claimant does not file a statement of claim?

Section 25(a) permits the arbitral tribunal to terminate the proceedings. In Mecwel Constructions Pvt. Ltd. v. GE Power Systems India Pvt. Ltd. (14 October 2025), the Delhi High Court held that such an order is not an arbitral award and therefore cannot be challenged under Section 34. The remedy is an application under Section 14(2), and on the facts of that case the arbitration was revived before the same arbitrator.

Can a respondent file a counterclaim in arbitration?

Yes. Section 23(2A) entitles the respondent to submit a counterclaim or plead a set-off, and the tribunal must adjudicate it if it falls within the scope of the arbitration agreement. In State of Goa v. Praveen Enterprises, (2012) 12 SCC 581, the Supreme Court of India held that where the arbitration clause refers all disputes between the parties, the arbitrator has jurisdiction over counterclaims, and that a counterclaim is not barred merely because it was not raised in earlier proceedings under Section 11.

Can a statement of claim be amended after it is filed?

Section 23(3) permits amendment or supplementation during the arbitral proceedings, unless the tribunal considers it inappropriate having regard to the delay in making the request. Amendments sought before the evidence stage are more readily allowed than those sought afterwards. An amendment cannot bring in a claim that falls outside the scope of the arbitration agreement.

References

• Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, Sections 23, 25, 29A and 31(7), India Code
• Mecwel Constructions Pvt. Ltd. v. GE Power Systems India Pvt. Ltd., Delhi High Court, 14 October 2025, 2025:DHC:9326
• M/s Raj Chawla and Co. Stock and Share Brokers v. M/s Nine Media and Information Services Ltd., Delhi High Court, 30 January 2023, 2023/DHC/000580
• Yashovardhan Sinha HUF v. Satyatej Vyapaar Pvt. Ltd., Calcutta High Court, 19 February 2024, C.O. No. 4125 of 2023
• State of Goa v. Praveen Enterprises, (2012) 12 SCC 581

This article is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Readers should consult a qualified advocate on the facts of their own matter.