THE ARBITRABILITY PROBLEM: THE ISSUE OF FRAUD

Abstract There has been no clear specific law in the field of arbitration on matters like fraud when alleged by one party on the other. In such cases, whether the arbitrator has the power to adjudicate the case or whether it is in the domain of the court is something which is not yet decided and has been the topic of research in this paper. There is no fixed answer to this question as per now but decisions have been made on the basis of doctrines like separability doctrine and doctrine of competency where the issue arises as to the validity of the entire agreement along with the arbitration clause. Moreover, many conflicting decisions by the court have been studied by the scholar on the issue of whether fraud is now a matter of private or a public forum. Many jurisdictions even decide this issue on the basis of preference of one party. The scholar in this paper has tried to decode the various considerations taken while deciding on such issues.