Indian courts have consistently held that disputes affecting rights in rem — enforceable against the world at large, such as matters of title, criminal offences, insolvency proceedings, and certain matrimonial and guardianship matters — are not arbitrable, even where the parties' contract contains an arbitration clause covering "all disputes."
Disputes that are purely in personam — affecting only the rights of the specific parties to the contract, such as most contractual, commercial and monetary claims — are generally arbitrable.
The boundary is not always obvious at drafting stage: a contract dispute can sometimes touch on a non-arbitrable question in passing. Where a dispute has both arbitrable and non-arbitrable elements, tribunals and courts generally separate them, deciding what can be arbitrated while leaving the rest to the appropriate forum.