By S&S Co. Advocates & Solicitors · Published 2 March 2026 · Informational content, not legal advice, see our disclaimer
The Problem Section 29A Was Meant to Solve
Section 29A of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 was inserted to stop arbitrations from dragging on indefinitely. It requires most awards to be made within twelve months of the tribunal entering reference, allows a further six months by consent of the parties, and requires anything beyond that to go before a court for an extension of the tribunal's mandate. The provision is strict by design: once the mandate lapses without an extension, the tribunal's authority to act is meant to end.
In practice, arbitrations sometimes run past the clock before anyone applies for an extension, and a tribunal occasionally delivers its award only after the deadline has already passed. The question that then arises is whether that award is simply void, and whether a court even has the power to grant a Section 29A extension once the award already exists on the file.
What C. Velusamy v. K. Indhera Decided
In C. Velusamy v. K. Indhera (2026 INSC 112), the Supreme Court addressed exactly this sequence. The Court held that an application under Section 29A(5) to extend the tribunal's mandate remains maintainable even where the award has already been rendered after the statutory period expired. In other words, a court is not automatically stripped of jurisdiction to consider the extension simply because the arbitrator acted first and delivered the award before the court could rule on the extension application.
This is a narrower holding than it might first appear. The Court did not say that every late award will be validated, or that Section 29A's deadlines no longer matter. It said only that the lateness of the award, by itself, does not close the door to the court's power to extend the mandate, including with retrospective effect, where the facts justify it. Whether an extension is actually granted continues to depend on whether the party seeking it can show sufficient cause for the delay.
What Parties Should Actually Do
The practical risk the ruling addresses is this: a party resisting an award might previously have argued that because the award arrived after the Section 29A deadline and no extension had yet been granted, the award was a nullity and any later extension application was pointless. The Supreme Court's ruling takes that particular argument off the table. A party can still apply for, or defend against, an extension after the fact, and the merits of that application, not the mere sequencing of award-then-application, will decide the outcome.
None of this is a reason to relax case management around Section 29A deadlines. Tribunals and parties should still apply for an extension before the mandate lapses wherever that is realistically possible, both to avoid the cost and delay of a retrospective extension fight and because a court asked to extend a mandate retrospectively will still scrutinise why the parties or tribunal allowed the deadline to pass in the first place.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does a late award become automatically invalid under Section 29A?
Not automatically. The Supreme Court has clarified that a court retains the power to consider an extension application even after a late award has been rendered, so the correct course is to seek or oppose that extension on the merits rather than treat lateness alone as fatal.
Is a Section 29A extension granted automatically once applied for?
No. An extension under Section 29A(4) remains discretionary and requires the applicant to show sufficient cause; the jurisdictional clarification only concerns whether the application can be entertained at all, not whether it will succeed.
Should parties still track the Section 29A timeline closely?
Yes. Relying on a court's residual power to extend the mandate after the fact is not a substitute for timely case management; parties and tribunals should continue to apply for an extension before the deadline lapses wherever possible.
References & Further Reading
This article references the following statute and judicial decision. Case details have been cross-checked against more than one published source at the time of writing; readers should verify against the official judgment for any specific matter.
- Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, Section 29A.
- C. Velusamy v. K. Indhera, reported as 2026 INSC 112, decided 3 February 2026.
- See our Legal News coverage and Arbitration & Dispute Resolution practice page for further detail.