In Brief

A seven-judge bench of the Supreme Court held that unstamped or insufficiently stamped arbitration agreements are merely inadmissible in evidence, not void or unenforceable. The Court rejected the majority view in N N Global 2 (2023) and held that non-stamping is a curable defect. The Arbitration Act, as a special law with non-obstante provisions, has primacy over the Stamp Act. Referral courts under Sections 8 and 11 must only examine whether an arbitration agreement prima facie exists under Section 7, leaving all stamping objections to the arbitral tribunal. The separability presumption applies substantively to protect arbitration agreements from underlying contract defects. The negative competence-competence doctrine requires courts to defer to the arbitral tribunal.

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