Unlike civil courts, arbitral tribunals are not bound by the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, and generally have discretion to decide what evidence to admit and how much weight to give it, subject to natural justice.
Most institutional arbitrations proceed on written witness statements filed in advance, with oral examination limited to cross-examination and brief clarificatory questions at the hearing — a significant time saving over court-style examination-in-chief.
Document-heavy commercial disputes typically also involve a structured disclosure or document-production stage, where each party can seek specific categories of documents from the other, subject to the tribunal's control over relevance and proportionality.