How arbitrators are allotted

Manch allots arbitrators to cases by a deterministic round-robin drawn from a published panel. The process runs by software, on a per-batch basis, with a public audit trail. No human at Manch can override the order. This page explains how the allotment works and why it is built this way.

1. Why round-robin

The Supreme Court's ruling in Central Organisation for Railway Electrification v. ECI-SPIC-SMO-MCML (the CORE-II Constitution Bench, 2024) closed the door on unilateral panels where one party dictates the arbitrator. Earlier rulings — Perkins Eastman v. HSCC India (2019) and TRF Limited v. Energo Engineering (2017) — disqualified persons interested in the outcome from making unilateral appointments.

The line of cases from Voestalpine Schienen v. DMRC (2017) through Kotak Mahindra Bank v. Narendra Kumar Prajapat held that even where a panel is broad and independent, the counterparty must have a meaningful voice in the appointment. A mechanical, neutral selection from a broad pool is the cleanest way to deliver that, because it removes the appointing party from the choice at all.

Manch's round-robin is built to sit on the right side of that line. The allotment is mechanical. The panel is broad. No party, counsel, or Manch staff selects the arbitrator for a given case.

2. How the algorithm works

The algorithm is deterministic: given the same panel and the same sequence of cases, it always produces the same allotment. It is not a lottery and it is not weighted.

• Each empanelled arbitrator holds a position in an ordered list for the relevant scheme of cases.
• When a new batch of cases is received, the system walks the list in order and assigns one case to each arbitrator in turn, wrapping back to the top of the list when it reaches the end.
• The pointer that marks the next arbitrator in line is persisted between batches. Two consecutive batches start where the previous one stopped — there is no reshuffle.
• Recusals and conflict declarations are handled by reallotment (see Section 5), not by skipping silently.

No human at Manch can advance, retard, or skip the pointer. The one exception is a documented recusal — that path is itself logged and is itself mechanical.

3. Allotment is per-batch, not per-case

Allotment runs in batches. A batch is a defined set of cases received in a defined window. Within a batch the order is fixed by the case-receipt timestamp and the round-robin pointer; no case in a batch is allotted before the batch is closed.

This matters because batching prevents any party from being able to time a filing to land on a chosen arbitrator. Even if a party knows the published order, the batch boundary controls when assignment occurs, and the pointer at batch-close is the only thing that selects the arbitrator.

4. Pool composition

The pool of arbitrators is empanelled by the institution administering the scheme of cases (for instance, the Indian Council of Arbitration for ICA-administered matters). Empanelment is governed by the institution's rules — qualifications, bar-council standing, sector experience, and independence declarations.

The list of empanelled arbitrators for each scheme is published and accessible to parties. The order in which arbitrators appear in the round-robin list is fixed at empanelment and is itself part of the audit trail.

5. Recusal and reallotment

An arbitrator must decline an appointment if any of the grounds listed in the Fifth and Seventh Schedules of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 apply. The decline is recorded with a reason code drawn from the Schedules.

• On a recusal, the case is reallotted to the next arbitrator in the round-robin order — not to an arbitrator of any party's choice.
• The original allotment, the reason for recusal, and the new allotment are all preserved in the case audit trail.
• A pattern of recusals by a single arbitrator triggers an institutional review of empanelment fitness.

6. Disclosure requirements

Before accepting an appointment, every arbitrator files a disclosure under Section 12 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, addressing the grounds in the Fifth Schedule (independence) and the Seventh Schedule (ineligibility). The disclosure goes on the case record.

We follow the disclosure discipline the Supreme Court set out in Perkins Eastman and applied in subsequent cases — the disclosure must be specific, not boilerplate, and any relationship that could reasonably give rise to justifiable doubts about independence must be declared.

7. Public audit trail

For every case allotted on the platform, the following is preserved and produceable on request to the tribunal or a court:

• The empanelled panel and the round-robin order at batch-close.
• The batch boundary timestamps and the position of the pointer.
• The case-receipt timestamp and the arbitrator allotted.
• The Section 12 disclosure filed by the arbitrator.
• Any recusal, the recorded reason, and the reallotment.

Parties to a case can verify their own allotment against this record. The platform's audit log is append-only and is hash-chained, so no entry can be silently altered after the fact.

8. Why this matters for Section 12 and Section 34

Section 12 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 deals with grounds to challenge an arbitrator's appointment. Section 34 deals with grounds to set aside the resulting award. Both routes can put the tribunal's constitution under the spotlight.

A mechanical, auditable allotment process is the cleanest answer to a Section 12 challenge based on independence or impartiality of the appointing process. Where a party alleges that the tribunal was constituted irregularly, Manch can produce the complete audit trail and show that the result was the only result the algorithm could have produced.

For Section 34 challenges, the same record establishes that the tribunal was composed in accordance with the agreement of the parties — typically a clause referring to the institution's rules — and that the composition did not turn on any human discretion that could be impeached.

9. Our commitment

Manch will not override the round-robin. We will not advance one arbitrator over another at the request of a party, counsel, or institution. We will not retard the pointer to keep a case from reaching a particular arbitrator. The audit trail will show, in every case, that the allotment was the next allotment the algorithm produced.

If you believe an allotment on the platform did not follow this process, please contact privacy@manch.live with the case reference. We will produce the audit trail to you and, if relevant, to the tribunal.