Under Section 11 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, parties are free to agree on the procedure for appointing arbitrators. In a three-member tribunal, each side typically nominates one arbitrator, and the two nominees agree on a presiding arbitrator.
When a clause is silent, or when one party refuses to nominate within the agreed time, the appointment procedure set out in the Act applies, ultimately allowing the other party — or an institution under its own rules — to make the appointment on the defaulting party's behalf.
Institutional administration removes most of this friction: the registry manages timelines, chases nominations, and applies a defined fallback appointment mechanism rather than leaving a stalled tribunal to become a separate dispute of its own.