AHMEDABAD: The concept of mediation in the judiciary is yet to find widespread acceptance due to certain bottlenecks, but added that all stakeholders should display a positive attitude towards the subject in order to achieve the desired result, President Ram Nath Kovind said on Saturday.
He was inaugurating the National Judicial Conference on Mediation and Information Technology, a two-day event organized by the Gujarat High Court, at Tent City near the Statue of Unity at Kevadia in the Narmada district.
The topmost objective of switching the justice delivery system to information and communication technology (ICT) should be an improvement of access to justice, Kovind added.
Mediation aims to settle the dispute, not by any command or authority. Rather, it encourages the parties to arrive at the settlement by systematic mediation sittings by the mediator. The legislation also provides an incentive: if any pending litigation is settled by mediation, the entire court fees deposited by the litigant party are refunded. Thus, truly speaking, in mediation, everyone is a winner.
Kovind further said that during the last two decades, all stakeholders have recognized mediation as an effective tool for dispute resolution and encouraged it. As several legal luminaries have observed, most of the cases pending in the courts between individuals with respect to civil rights are such that they do not need adjudication. The parties in such cases can redress their dispute amicably through a structured intervention of mediators.
Chief Justice of India N V Ramana implored that an “active effort must be taken by courts to make negotiations and mediation mandatory as part of case management.
“We need skilled mediators to decide some significant issues during the process of mediation, particularly in a situation where settlement is fully going in favor of a particular party. What is the duty of a mediator in a settlement which is patently unjust to the weaker party? Should the mediator be a silent spectator during such negotiations? These are just some of the questions which one must consider, the ideals of substantive quality must be reflected in the resolution processes as well, with adequate cooperation from all stakeholders, it has the ability to emerge as a tool of social justice," Ramana added.
The CJI cautioned that with rapid technological advancements, there is a “possibility of increasing litigation” in “cryptocurrency, data protection, encryption, and artificial intelligence.”
Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju emphasized the need for coordination between the “executive and judiciary” to ensure effective implementation of laws, and stressed that it hardly matters whether justice is delivered by courts or under the aegis of the executive through mediation, as long as justice is being delivered.
When judges sit in court they work independently and when we sit in Parliament, we make laws. And as part of the executive, we are determined on implementation. But if there is a lack of coordination between the executive and judiciary, then implementation will also be difficult. Whether we give justice from courtrooms or we go to someone’s house in a village to give justice, the issue is one – people must get justice,” he said.
Rijiju Said, mediation has been part of Indian culture and “was there in the days of Ramayan and Mahabharat and is practised widely today in small villages, talukas, in every sphere of life,”
The conference was attended by India’s top judicial officers in the presence of Gujarat Governor Acharya Devvrat, Gujarat CM Bhupendra Patel, Gujarat High Court Chief Justice Aravind Kumar, and other judges of the Gujarat HC.