An arbitral award is understood as the culmination of the arbitral process. The pleadings have been closed, evidence has been led and arguments have been heard before rendering an award. The award, however, often marks not the end of the dispute, but the beginning of a distinct post-award phase. The unsuccessful party may challenge the award under Section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 ("Arbitration Act"), while the successful party may move towards enforcement. Between the award and its eventual judicial culmination, the question of interim protection may continue to assume practical significance.

In this backdrop, the Supreme Court's decision in Home Care Retail Marts Pvt. Ltd. v. Haresh N. Sanghavi, 2026 INSC 415, acquires particular significance. The question before the Court was seemingly narrow: whether a party that has lost in arbitration and consequently has no enforceable award in its favour, can nevertheless invoke Section 9 after the award has been rendered but before it is enforced?

The Supreme Court answered this question in the affirmative. It held that the expression "a party" in Section 9 cannot be read as referring only to a successful party or an award holder. Section 2(1)(h) defines "party" simply as a party to an arbitration agreement and neither that provision nor Section 9 creates a distinction between a party that succeeds and one that fails in the arbitral proceedings. To introduce such a distinction at the post-award stage would, in the Court's view, amount to altering the statutory language.

The significance of Home Care, lies equally in what the judgment does not hold. Neither does it place an unsuccessful party on an equal footing with an award-holder nor does it transform Section 9 into a collateral appellate remedy against an adverse award. Rather, the judgment draws a critical distinction between access to the statutory remedy and entitlement to the relief sought therein. The outcome of the arbitration does not determine whether a party may invoke Section 9; it remains highly relevant to whether the Court should exercise its discretion in that party's favour.

The judgment therefore invites a broader reconsideration of the foundations of post-award interim protection. For over a decade, one strand of Indian arbitration jurisprudence had understood post-award Section 9 as a mechanism for preserving the “fruits” of an arbitral award for the successful party. Home Care rejects the proposition that this understanding can determine who is entitled to invoke the statutory remedy in the first place. The inquiry instead shifts from a rigid winner-loser binary and towards a more functional question: what interest, subject matter or amount requires protection and why is such protection necessary at that particular stage of the arbitral lifecycle?

The Statutory Starting Point

Section 9 permits a party to approach the Court for interim measures before or during arbitral proceedings or at any time after making of the arbitral award but before its enforcement in accordance with Section 36. The provision includes a range of measures; preservation or interim custody of goods, securing the amount in dispute, inspection of property, interim injunctions, appointment of receivers and other measures as the Court may consider just and convenient.

The scope of Section 9 is therefore deliberately broad. It operates across the lifecycle of an arbitration. Significantly, the definition of a “party” under the Arbitration Act contains no qualification basis the outcome of arbitration, the existence of an award in that party's favour or its status as an award-holder. The expression of a “party” is, in this sense, outcome-neutral.

The judicial perspective

The restrictive view of post-award Section 9 did not emerge without reason. In Dirk India Private Limited, 2013 SCC OnLine BOM 481, the Bombay High Court held that the remedy under Section 9 was unavailable to a losing party because the provision was directed towards protecting the fruits of success in arbitration, serving as a “step in aid of the enforcement” The Delhi High Court in Nussli Switzerland Ltd. v. Organizing Committee Commonwealth Games, 2014 SCC OnLine Del 4834, subsequently endorsed this approach.

The underlying concern was intuitive. An arbitral award determines the rights and liabilities of the parties. For instance, where Party A succeeds against Party B and Party B threatens to dissipate assets, Party A should be able to approach the Court to ensure the award is not rendered meaningless before enforcement. But where Party A loses, what exactly is Party A seeking to preserve? The difficulty becomes acute where the relief sought under Section 9 corresponds directly to the very claim rejected by the tribunal.

The restrictive approach was also driven by a concern regarding finality and procedural abuse. If every unsuccessful party could routinely approach the Court under Section 9, a party could combine a Section 34 challenge with a Section 9 application to delay or frustrate the successful party's enjoyment of the award.

Home Care does not disregard these concerns. Instead, it relocates them. Fears regarding abuse, finality and interference with enforcement justify a higher threshold for the grant of relief; they do not justify depriving an unsuccessful party of statutory access to a remedy the legislature made available to “a party”.

This resolution carries implications for the relationship between Sections 9, 34 and 36.It interacts with broader constitutional jurisprudence including Gayatri Balasamy v. ISG Novasoft Technologies Ltd., 2025 SCC OnLine SC 986, regarding the courts' powers at the post-award stage. It addresses the risk of Section 9 operating as a disguised stay application and questions whether the binary classification of parties as “successful” and “unsuccessful” can adequately Address modern commercial arbitration.

Access to remedy is not equivalent to grant of relief

The distinction between maintainability and relief lies at the heart of Home Care.

The unsuccessful party remains legally entitled to invoke Section 9 because it falls within the statutory expression “a party” under Section 2(1)(h). But statutory standing does not mean the Court must grant the interim measure sought. The fact that the applicant has already suffered an adverse arbitral award becomes central when the Court exercises its discretion.

Accordingly, while traditional equitable principles governing interim relief, including prima facie case, balance of convenience and irreparable injury remain applicable, the post-award context alters the intensity of judicial scrutiny. An unsuccessful party cannot approach the Court as though the arbitral adjudication had never occurred. The tribunal has already determined the underlying dispute, that determination must inform the Court's assessment of whether interim protection is truly warranted at the instance of the losing party.

This explains the Supreme Court's emphasis on “care, caution and circumspection” and the heightened threshold for an unsuccessful party. The judgment avoids both extremes: it neither closes the doors of the Court to an unsuccessful party nor places such a party on the same footing as an award-holder seeking to preserve the fruits of an award.

Section 9 across the arbitration lifecycle

The broader significance of Home Care becomes clearer when Section 9 is viewed across the entire lifecycle of an arbitration.

Before arbitration, interim protection preserves the subject matter of the dispute. During arbitration, it protects the parties when interim intervention by the tribunal is unavailable or ineffective. After the award, it protects the successful party's ability to realise and enforce the award. Yet, in exceptional cases, it may also protect an unsuccessful party from irreparable prejudice while its Section 34 challenge is being adjudicated.

The statutory provision does not change across these stages. What changes is the objective of the protection. As the judgment succinctly recognises, “the statute does not change, the objective changes.”

Home Care is significant not merely because it answers who may approach the Court under Section 9, but because it clarifies how the Court should evaluate requests for protection once an award has been rendered.

The judgment does not diminish the finality of arbitral awards nor does it provide an unsuccessful party with a back-door mechanism to re-open the merits. Instead, it preserves statutory access while recognising that an adverse award alters the discretionary assessment of relief. The unsuccessful party enters the post-award stage with access to Section 9, but without an automatic entitlement to protection.

This calibrated approach protects the integrity of arbitration. Completely excluding an unsuccessful party would read into the statute a restriction Parliament did not enact. Conversely, permitting routine post-award applications without heightened scrutiny would undermine finality.

Home Care occupies the space between these extremes. The real inquiry is no longer whether the applicant is the “winner” or the “loser”. It is whether, at that stage of arbitral lifecycle, there exists a legitimate interest requiring judicial protection and whether the circumstances justify the exceptional exercise of that power.

The award determines who won the arbitration; it does not determine who may seek judicial protection. The post-award stage is best understood through the continuing need to balance finality with protection, enforcement with fairness and statutory access with judicial restraint. This is where the enduring significance of Home Care lies.

Author is working as a Senior Associate-Legal for Medicover Hospitals. Views are personal.