A claimant who wins an arbitration but finds the respondent has emptied its accounts or sold the disputed property in the meantime holds what Indian courts call a "paper award": correct in law, worthless in practice. Section 17 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 exists to prevent that outcome. It empowers an arbitral tribunal, once constituted, to grant interim measures of protection, including freezing assets, restraining their alienation and securing the amount in dispute. Since the 2015 Amendment those orders are enforced as if they were orders of a civil court. This explainer sets out what the tribunal can order, the test it applies, the limits on that power, and how Section 17 relief compares with court relief under Section 9.
The Statutory Power: What Section 17 Allows
Section 17, as substituted by the Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) Act, 2015 with effect from 23 October 2015, lets a party apply to the tribunal during the arbitral proceedings, or after the award is made but before it is enforced under Section 36, for a defined menu of interim measures:
"(ii) for an interim measure of protection in respect of any of the following matters, namely: (a) the preservation, interim custody or sale of any goods which are the subject-matter of the arbitration agreement; (b) securing the amount in dispute in the arbitration; (c) the detention, preservation or inspection of any property or thing which is the subject-matter of the dispute ...; (d) interim injunction or the appointment of a receiver; (e) such other interim measure of protection as may appear to the arbitral tribunal to be just and convenient, and the arbitral tribunal shall have the same power for making orders, as the court has for the purpose of, and in relation to, any proceedings before it."
Two features of the drafting do most of the work. The specific heads under clauses (a) to (d) cover the preservation of goods, security for the money claimed, the detention and inspection of property, injunctions and receivers. The residuary clause (e) then permits any other measure the tribunal finds "just and convenient", which brings Section 17 into line with the UNCITRAL Model Law and prevents the enumerated list from being read as exhaustive. The closing words give the tribunal "the same power ... as the court", so its interim jurisdiction is measured against a civil court's, not against some narrower arbitral standard.