Make India investor friendly

Dear Madam,

This is with reference to the Cover story titled Law enforcement published in India Business Law Journal’s July/August 2009 edition. The cover story rightly expresses concern over the enforcement regime and its impact on country’s economic growth.

In India, execution of foreign judgments and decrees is governed by the provisions of Sections 13, 14 and 44A of the Civil Procedure Code (CPC). A decree passed by any superior court in a “reciprocating territory” is directly executable provided that certain conditions stipulated in the CPC are fulfilled. So far, India has only notified 13 countries as reciprocating territories, leaving many highly ranked trading partners and FDI contributors off the list. For example the US, France, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, Netherland, China, Mauritius and others have yet to be notified.

In a case which does not fall within the scope of Section 44A, a foreign judgment can only be enforced by a suit upon the judgment by the foreign court, which may well take a decade to obtain. Thereafter, the execution of decree may take between five and seven years.