Govt launches portal to facilitate ease of doing business in India

Govt launches portal to facilitate ease of doing business in India

The Enforcing Contracts Portal aims to improve the Contract Enforcement Regime in the country

The Department of Justice has launched a dedicated portal to bolster ease of doing business in India. The Enforcing Contracts Portal was launched Monday by Secretary (Justice) Barun Mitra.

The Department of Justice in a statement issued Tuesday said that the portal aims to promote ease of doing business and improve the 'Contract Enforcement Regime' in the country.

The portal will provide easy access to the latest information on commercial cases in Dedicated Commercial Courts of Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Kolkata. The portal will also provide access to a repository of commercial laws.

The portal aims to be a source of providing comprehensive information pertaining to the legislative and policy reforms being undertaken on the Enforcing Contracts parameters by the Government of India.

The statement said that the Department of Justice under the Ministry of Law and Justice has been monitoring legislative and policy reforms to strengthen the Enforcing Contracts regime for Ease of Doing Business in India.

Enforcing Contracts, the ministry explained, is an essential area that measures time and cost to resolve a standardized commercial dispute as well as a series of good practices in the judiciary.

The Law Ministry has explained that the Doing Business Report of World Bank benchmarks business regulations across 191 economies of the world. Within this, the Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) index is a ranking system that is an indication of an economy's position relative to that of other economies across 11 areas of business regulation.

While only Delhi and Mumbai are under the purview of the Ease of Doing Business survey by the World Bank, while Kolkata and Bengaluru are likely to be included in the Doing Business Report in future.

The portal will have the latest data related to the functioning and disposal of commercial cases in the Dedicated Commercial Courts of Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Kolkata which have been set up for speedy resolution of commercial disputes. These courts have dedicated infrastructure and exclusive judicial human power.

The portal also hosts online reporting by all High Courts regarding the Mediation and Arbitration centres annexed to the Commercial Courts in order to monitor and promote institutional mediation and arbitration by way of Pre-institution Mediation and Settlement (PIMS) of commercial cases, which was introduced recently to reduce pendency of cases and to promote mediation as a viable dispute resolution alternative in commercial dispute cases.