How to Track Tribunal and Arbitration Cases in India

How-To Guide · Tribunal & Arbitration Tracking

Updated for 2026 · Claw Editorial

Tribunal matters and arbitration cases both fall outside the regular civil court system, and both are commonly tracked badly, but for different reasons. A tribunal matter is public but scattered across a portal that has nothing to do with the eCourts system most lawyers already know. An arbitration proceeding is often not public at all, since it runs on the arbitral tribunal's own schedule with no cause list anywhere online, until it spills into a court through a Section 9, 34, 36, or 37 petition. This guide explains how to track both kinds of matters, and how to tell which tracking method applies to which part of your file.

The short answer

Three different tracks: tribunal matters (public, scattered across bench portals), arbitration proceedings (private, tracked through the institution or the arbitrator), and arbitration court petitions under Sections 9, 11, 34, 36, and 37 (public, searchable like any litigation).
Tribunal matters: confirm the bench, bookmark its cause-list page, and replace manual daily checks with calendar-linked alerts.
Arbitration proceedings: there is no public portal. Log every procedural order the day it arrives, and track the Section 29A award timeline separately from the hearing schedule.
Arbitration court petitions: search by case type on the relevant High Court or commercial court portal, and prioritise Section 36 enforcement matters for speed.
One register, three sources: keep every matter in a single weekly-reviewed register, tagged by track, even though each track is tracked differently.

01Why these two are grouped, and why tracking differs

Tribunals and arbitration get grouped together because both sit outside the regular court hierarchy that eCourts was built for. But the tracking problem inside each one is almost opposite.

Tribunal matters are public but scattered

India's tribunals, such as the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT), the National Green Tribunal (NGT), and the Debt Recovery Tribunal (DRT), publish cause lists and orders online. The problem is that each tribunal runs its own portal, in its own format, with no alert system built in. A team tracking matters across three tribunals is checking three separate websites, often manually, every day.

Arbitration proceedings are often not public at all

An arbitration is a private, contractual dispute-resolution process. There is no public cause list for a pending arbitration the way there is for a tribunal or a court. If your matter is before an institution such as the Mumbai Centre for International Arbitration (MCIA) or the Indian Council of Arbitration (ICA), hearing dates and procedural orders usually reach you through the institution's own case administration, not a public website. If your matter is an ad hoc arbitration, the arbitral tribunal itself sets the schedule, and there may be no online record at all until an award is passed.

Arbitration only becomes searchable once it reaches a court

The Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 gives courts a supporting role: appointing an arbitrator (Section 11), granting interim relief before or during arbitration (Section 9), hearing a challenge to an award (Section 34), enforcing an award (Section 36), and hearing appeals from certain orders (Section 37). The moment any of these is filed, the matter becomes a regular court case, usually before a commercial court or the commercial division of a High Court, and it becomes searchable on eCourts or the relevant High Court portal like any other litigation.

One guide, two different jobs

Tracking a tribunal matter and tracking an arbitration are genuinely different jobs, even though this guide covers both. If your matter has moved from arbitration into a Section 34 or Section 36 petition secured by a bank or NBFC under the SARFAESI Act, the case-tracking approach is closer to regular litigation. See what SARFAESI case tracking involves for that specific scenario.

02Step 1: Sort each matter into its correct track

Before you can track anything well, sort your open matters into three tracks, because each one needs a different method.

Track A, tribunal matters: anything before NCLT, NCLAT, ITAT, SAT, NGT, DRT, DRAT, CESTAT, CAT, TDSAT, or a state-level tribunal. These are public and searchable, bench by bench.
Track B, arbitration proceedings: anything currently before an arbitral tribunal, whether institutional (administered by a body like MCIA, ICA, DIAC, or NSE arbitration) or ad hoc (run directly by the arbitrator or panel with no administering institution). These are private and not searchable on any public portal.
Track C, arbitration-related court petitions: anything filed in a commercial court or High Court under Sections 9, 11, 34, 36, or 37 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996. These are public court cases, searchable like any other litigation.

A single arbitration dispute can touch all three tracks over its life: it might begin with a Section 9 petition for interim relief (Track C), move into the arbitration itself (Track B), and end with a Section 34 challenge or a Section 36 enforcement petition (Track C again). Keep the tracking method tied to which track the matter is on right now, not to the dispute as a whole.

An arbitration only becomes visible to a public search the moment it walks into a courtroom. Before that, tracking depends entirely on the institution or the arbitrator, not on any government portal.

03Step 2: Track tribunal matters

For Track A matters, the method is straightforward, even though it takes discipline to run consistently.

Identify the correct tribunal and bench

Many tribunals sit at multiple benches. NCLT alone has benches across several cities, and a matter is tied to a specific bench, not the tribunal generally. Confirm the bench before you start searching, since a matter can also be transferred between benches during its life.

Bookmark the official cause-list page for each bench

Every major tribunal, NCLT, NCLAT, ITAT, SAT, NGT, DRT, DRAT, CESTAT, CAT, and TDSAT, publishes cause lists and orders on its own official site. There is no single portal that covers all of them together the way eCourts covers district courts and many High Courts.

Replace the manual daily check with an alert

Most tribunal portals do not send SMS or email alerts the way eCourts does for registered High Court and district court matters. The practical fix is a calendar reminder the evening before each known hearing date, so someone checks the cause list before it changes overnight, plus a named owner for each tribunal portal if the volume is high enough to need one.

This is a large enough topic on its own that we cover it in full depth separately, including a step-by-step process and a matter-register template, in our dedicated guide to tribunal tracking.

04Step 3: Track arbitration proceedings

Track B is where most lawyers get caught out, because there is no portal to bookmark. Tracking an active arbitration means managing information that arrives through private channels.

Institutional arbitration: track through the institution

If the arbitration is administered by an institution, the institution's case management or secretariat is your source of truth for hearing dates, procedural orders, and timelines. Indian institutions handling this role include the Mumbai Centre for International Arbitration (MCIA), the Indian Council of Arbitration (ICA), the Delhi International Arbitration Centre (DIAC), and sector bodies such as NSE arbitration for securities market disputes. Some institutions now offer an online case portal for registered parties and counsel; where that exists, treat it the same way you would a tribunal portal, checking it regularly and confirming who on your team owns that check.

Ad hoc arbitration: track through the tribunal's own directions

In an ad hoc arbitration, there is no administering institution at all. The arbitrator or panel issues procedural orders directly to the parties, usually by email, setting hearing dates, filing deadlines, and the schedule for pleadings and evidence. There is no external record to check. The only reliable method is to log every procedural order the moment it is received, since a missed email is the only way a date gets missed.

Track the arbitration timeline itself

Under Section 29A of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, an arbitral tribunal seated in India is expected to make its award within a set period from completion of pleadings, extendable by the parties or the court. Track this deadline independently of the hearing schedule, because a missed extension request can affect the tribunal's mandate.

Keep a private matter file, since there is nothing public to fall back on

Because arbitration has no public cause list, your internal file is the only record. Log every notice, procedural order, and extension the day it is received, with the date and the deadline it creates. If your firm relies on memory or scattered emails for this, a missed arbitration deadline is far more likely than a missed court date, precisely because there is no external system that would catch the error.

05Step 4: Track arbitration petitions in court

Track C matters are the easiest of the three, because once an arbitration matter reaches a court, it follows the same searchable, public process as any other litigation.

Where these petitions are filed

Under the Commercial Courts Act, 2015, arbitration matters above the specified pecuniary threshold are heard by the commercial division of a High Court or by a designated commercial court, depending on the state and the High Court's original or appellate jurisdiction. Section 9 petitions for interim relief, Section 34 petitions to set aside an award, and Section 37 appeals are typically listed under case types specific to arbitration, such as Arbitration Petition (Arb. P.) or, in the Delhi High Court, Original Miscellaneous Petition (Comm) for Section 34 matters.

How to search these cases

Search on the relevant High Court's case status portal or on eCourts, using the case number if you have it, or the party name and case type if you do not. Because arbitration petitions carry a distinct case type, filtering by that case type narrows results significantly on a High Court with heavy general litigation volume.

Section 36 enforcement is where speed matters most

A Section 36 petition to enforce an award is treated as execution proceedings once admitted, and delay in tracking its progress directly delays recovery. If your team handles high-value award enforcement, this is the stage to prioritise for automated alerts, not manual checking, since execution proceedings can move quickly once they are listed.

For general guidance on searching and tracking High Court matters once they are in the public court system, see Indian Kanoon alternatives for case research, which covers tools built for exactly this kind of court-level search.

06Step 5: Build one register for both

Even though tribunal, arbitration, and arbitration-related court matters are tracked through different sources, they should live in one register, not three. A partner or general counsel reviewing the week's deadlines should not have to open separate files for each track.

A minimal register needs these columns for every matter, tribunal, arbitration, or arbitration petition alike:

Matter name and client.
Track: tribunal, institutional arbitration, ad hoc arbitration, or arbitration court petition, so the right tracking method is obvious at a glance.
Forum: the specific tribunal and bench, the arbitral institution, or the court and case type.
Reference number: the tribunal case number, the arbitration reference number issued by the institution, or the court case number.
Next date or deadline: the next hearing, or the next Section 29A or procedural deadline for an arbitration.
Responsible person and last checked date.

Review the register weekly as a team, with anything due in the next seven days flagged for a direct check against the source, whether that source is a tribunal portal, an institution's case management contact, or a court website.

This is where a spreadsheet stops working

A spreadsheet register is fine at low volume. Once a firm is running tribunal matters, active arbitrations, and arbitration court petitions at the same time across multiple lawyers, a shared register with automated updates removes the risk of someone forgetting to check their column. Small firms weighing this trade-off can see how small law firms in India use legaltech for the practical version of this decision.

07Step 6: Automate what can be automated

Not every part of this process can be automated. A private, ad hoc arbitration with no institutional portal will always depend on someone logging procedural orders correctly. But the public, searchable parts, tribunal matters and arbitration-related court petitions, can be pulled and monitored automatically instead of checked by hand.

What to look for in software for this combination

Tribunal coverage: does it actually pull cause lists and orders from NCLT, ITAT, NGT, SAT, DRT, and similar tribunals, not just High Courts?
Court coverage that includes commercial courts: arbitration petitions are filed in commercial courts and the commercial division of High Courts, so confirm these are covered, not just the general civil side.
Case-type filtering: can you isolate arbitration petitions (Section 9, 34, 36, 37) from a court's general litigation volume?
Order-triggered compliance reminders: when a Section 34 or Section 36 order is passed, does the tool read it and schedule the next deadline automatically, rather than relying on someone to calendar it manually?
A single dashboard across tracks: can your team see tribunal matters and arbitration court petitions together, even though the arbitration proceeding itself has to be tracked manually?

No case management software can pull hearing dates out of a private, ad hoc arbitration that has no online presence. What good software can do is remove the manual burden from everything that is public, so your team's attention goes to the arbitration files that genuinely need a human eye.

08Where 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. Its case management module covers 8,200+ courts and tribunals across all states, including district courts, tribunals, and the Supreme Court.

For this combination specifically, Claw is built for Track A and Track C: it tracks tribunal matters and arbitration-related court petitions automatically, with WhatsApp and email alerts and an AI auto-compliance feature that reads a new order and schedules the next deadline without someone manually calendaring it. This is useful the moment a Section 34 challenge or a Section 36 enforcement petition is filed, since from that point the matter behaves like any other tracked court case in Claw's coverage.

Claw does not, and cannot, track a private arbitration proceeding itself, since institutional and ad hoc arbitration hearings are not on any public court record. That part of the file still depends on your institution's case administration or your own internal log. Where Claw adds real value is in removing the manual portal-checking for everything around the arbitration, the tribunal matters running alongside it and the court petitions it eventually generates, so your team's time goes to the parts of the file that genuinely need judgement.

09Frequently asked questions

Can I track an ongoing arbitration case online in India?

Generally, no. Arbitration is a private, contractual process, and there is no public cause list for a pending arbitration the way there is for a court or a tribunal. If the arbitration is institutional, hearing dates and orders come through the administering institution, such as MCIA or ICA. If it is ad hoc, they come directly from the arbitrator by email. An arbitration only becomes publicly searchable once a related petition, such as a Section 9 or Section 34 matter, is filed in court.

What is the difference between tracking a tribunal matter and tracking an arbitration?

A tribunal matter is public: the tribunal publishes its own cause list and orders online, and the tracking challenge is that each tribunal runs a separate portal with no shared alert system. An arbitration proceeding is private: there is no public record at all, and tracking depends entirely on the arbitral institution or the arbitrator directly notifying the parties. They need different tracking methods even though both sit outside the regular court system.

Where are Section 34 petitions to set aside an arbitral award filed and tracked?

A Section 34 petition is filed in the court with jurisdiction under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, typically the commercial division of the relevant High Court or a designated commercial court for matters above the specified pecuniary threshold. Once filed, it is a regular public court case, searchable by case number or party name on that court's case status portal or on eCourts, the same as any other litigation.

Does eCourts cover arbitration and tribunal matters?

eCourts covers the arbitration-related court petitions filed under Sections 9, 11, 34, 36, and 37 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, since these are filed in regular courts. It does not cover the arbitration proceeding itself, which is private, and it does not cover specialised tribunals such as NCLT, ITAT, NGT, or DRT, which run their own separate portals outside the eCourts system.

How do I track the Section 29A deadline for an arbitral award?

Log the date pleadings are completed in the arbitration, since Section 29A of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 sets a period from that date for the tribunal to make its award, extendable by the parties or the court. Track this deadline in your matter register separately from individual hearing dates, since it is easy to lose sight of a procedural timeline that has no external portal reminding you of it.

Can case management software track a private arbitration?

No case management software can pull hearing dates directly out of a private arbitration, since there is no public source to connect to. What software can do is track the public parts around it, the tribunal matters running alongside the dispute and the arbitration-related court petitions the dispute eventually generates, with automated alerts and order-based compliance reminders, so your team is not manually checking portals for everything that is trackable.