Section 37 of the Arbitration Act: Appealable Orders (2026)

Explainer · Arbitration · Section 37

Updated for 2026 · Claw Editorial

Section 37 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 decides which orders in an arbitration can be appealed. The list is deliberately short, because arbitration is meant to limit court interference. An appeal lies only from the specific orders Section 37 names, and from no others. This explainer sets out the appealable orders of a court and of a tribunal, what is not appealable, and the bar on a second appeal. Last verified October 2026.

01Why appeals are limited

Arbitration is chosen to avoid long court battles. If every order in an arbitration could be appealed, the process would collapse back into the court system it was meant to escape. So the Act allows appeals only from a narrow, named set of orders.

Section 37 is that list. Courts have read it strictly. The provision uses language that makes the list exhaustive, so an order that is not named simply cannot be appealed under the Act.

02Appealable orders of a court

Under Section 37(1), an appeal lies from the following orders of a court:

So the main court orders that shape an arbitration, whether to compel it, whether to protect a party in the meantime, and whether to let the award stand, are each appealable. For those provisions, see Section 8 and Section 9.

03Appealable orders of a tribunal

Under Section 37(2), an appeal also lies from two kinds of order of the arbitral tribunal:

• Section 37(2)(a): an order accepting the plea, under Section 16(2) or 16(3), that the tribunal has no jurisdiction or is exceeding its authority; and
• Section 37(2)(b): an order granting or refusing an interim measure under Section 17.

04What cannot be appealed

Because the list is closed, many orders are not appealable under Section 37. For example:

• an order by which the tribunal rejects a plea that it lacks jurisdiction (the challenge waits for Section 34);
• procedural orders of the tribunal during the arbitration; and
• an order referring parties to arbitration under Section 8 (only a refusal to refer is appealable).

This is the point of the provision. By leaving most orders out, it keeps the arbitration moving and limits the loser ability to stall through repeated appeals.

05No second appeal

Section 37(3) bars a second appeal. No second appeal lies from an order passed in appeal under this section. So once the first appeal is decided, the Act does not allow another round of appeal on the same order.

There is no second appeal under Section 37, but the right to approach the Supreme Court is expressly preserved.

The provision expressly keeps one door open. It does not take away the right to appeal to the Supreme Court, which is exercised under the Constitution and is discretionary and used sparingly.

06Time to file an appeal

The Act itself does not set out a single limitation period in Section 37. The time to file an appeal is governed by the general law of limitation, and for commercial disputes the shorter period under the Commercial Courts Act can apply.

Because the position depends on the court and the nature of the dispute, a party should confirm the exact limitation before filing. For how an award is enforced once appeals are exhausted, see Section 36 enforcement of an arbitral award, and for the award timeline, see Section 29A time limit for an award.

07Where Claw fits

Claw is an all-in-one legaltech platform for Indian advocates, law firms, and corporate legal teams, combining AI-based case search, an AI legal assistant (Legal GPT), case management, and compliance automation across all Indian courts and tribunals.

Whether a given order falls inside the closed Section 37 list is a recurring fight, and the answer usually sits in earlier benches. Claw lets you search more than 30 crore judgments and surfaces the relevant orders in under five seconds, so you can see how a High Court treated the appealability of a particular order. It keeps track of cases, orders and hearings across 9,102 courts, benches and forums, so a pending appeal can be followed by party or advocate name.

Claw does not use customer case documents to train its AI models, so your draft grounds of appeal stay private. Open a free Claw account to keep an eye on a live Section 37 appeal. To search the wider body of law, see case search across Indian courts.

08Sources and further reading

• India Code (Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996): indiacode.nic.in
• Legislative Department (bare Acts and amendments): legislative.gov.in
• PRS Legislative Research (arbitration amendments): prsindia.org
• Claw: clawlaw.in

This explainer is general information, not legal advice. The law changes through amendments and judgments, so check the current text and take advice from counsel before you act.

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