Former Chief Justice of India (CJI) Nuthalapati Venkata Ramana has ruled that the progress made by a society was directly proportional to the pace of dispute resolution.
Speaking during the first India Mediation Day, 2023 organised by the International Arbitration and Mediation Centre (IAMC) in Hyderabad on Sunday, the former CJI said that he after two decades of experience as a judge, he had no hesitation in stating that it was the ability of resolving disputes at a faster pace that will impact the progress of a society, a nation and the world.
This was applicable not only to commercial disputes, but to every dispute that people came across in day-to-day lives, such as family disputes, land disputes and societal disputes, noted Ramana.
The former CJI said he truly believed in the words of renowned international mediator Joseph Grynbaum, who once said, “An ounce of mediation is worth a pound of arbitration and a ton of litigation!”.
Calling mediation as one of the most powerful tools in resolving disputes, which were likely to grow in relevance in times to come, the renowned jurist said that in recent times, there has been an increasing trend towards Alternate Dispute Resolution in terms of awareness, adoption and inclination to participate.
While a great headway has been made in this direction, there was much to be done. Within the branches of Alternate Dispute Resolution, there has been a tilt towards arbitration. It was time to expand the attention to mediation and other hybrid systems, he noted.
The former CJI said that if the litigants opted for mediation as the first step in conflict resolution, many of the cases languishing in courts would have been resolved much earlier. He said the power of mediation has long been understated, which had deep roots in Indian society.
Citing the great Indian epic Mahabharata, Ramana said it showed an early attempt at mediation to resolve conflicts, wherein Lord Krishna attempted to mediate the dispute between the Pandavas and Kauravas. The failure of mediation led to disastrous consequences, he added.
In the increasingly complex relationships and conflicts today, there was a need to develop more systematic mediation forums, rules and techniques. India’s integration with the global economy has steadily grown since liberalisation in 1991.
The country now operated in a global market with an ever increasing cross-border commercial transactions. Stating that with every new relationship came a potential conflict, the former CJI said it was important to accept the need for legal remedies catering to this problem.
He said while exploring such cross border dispute resolution mechanisms, ADR shone the brightest. Stating that enforceability remained a major concern as far as mediation was concerned, he said different methods were being devised to tackle this issue, for instance Med-Arb and similar hybrid systems.
Ramana said the United Nations Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation or simply the Singapore Convention on Mediation, which was signed in 2019, was a big step in this direction as it paved the way for recognising and enforcing mediated settlement agreements.
India signed the Singapore Convention on August 7, 2019, indicating the country’s commitment
towards the concerted global efforts to promote mediation in cross border commercial disputes. It was this action that gave impetus to the Mediation Bill, 2021.
As per Ramana, the Bill has definitely moved the spotlight onto the potential and scope of mediation. It aimed at encouraging the use of mediation as a faster and more cost effective means of resolving disputes. He said the Parliamentary Standing Committee has scrutinised the Bill and has come up with certain valid recommendations for improvement.
He said he was sure the Parliament in its collective wisdom will come up with a comprehensive and scientific Mediation Act, which will go a long way in resolving the disputes at the very threshold, in the most acceptable manner.