Writing by Ayush Srivastava: Every claim begins in writing

The book follows disputes in India’s public infrastructure contracts from the clause that creates them to the courtroom in which they endure: the risk allocated by government standard forms, the claims built on notices and certificates, the awards that public employers so often challenge, and the settlements that few officers feel able to sign. It then examines the recent move away from arbitration in government contracts.

It draws on the public record, including contracts, arbitral awards, judgments, audit reports, answers given in Parliament and the Government’s own procurement instructions, and on published research. The account is diagnostic rather than accusatory: its concern is the structures and incentives behind these disputes, not the people involved, and it closes with proposals for reform of the contract, the process and the institutions behind both.