CHENNAI: The Supreme Court intends to take the process of mediation to the community level as a mode of dispute resolution because court litigation is not a way forward to resolve issues, said Supreme Court judge Justice Sanjiv Khanna. He was addressing a training programme on the Mediation Act, 2023, for judicial officers and mediators, which was organised by the Madras High Court, here on Saturday.
“The intention is to take the mediation process to the community level, through addition of commercial, family and other matters,” he said.
Touching on the mounting pendency of cases in courts at various levels, he pointed out that around 21 crore cases are pending in the district judiciaries, 67 lakh in the high courts and 52,660 in the Supreme Court in 2023.
Justice Khanna, who is the executive chairman of the national legal services authority, informed that six crore cases were resolved through lok adalats in 2023, 4.2 crore cases in 2022 and 1.3 crore in 2021.
“Think of the situation if all these cases would have come to the courts. There would be total chaos,” he said.
Recalling the stiff resistance made by the lawyers in the 2000s when the mediation process was initiated for dispute resolution, he said the Mediation Centre launched in Madras High Court in 2004 was the first in the country.
“The mediation process is going to be probably a profession which will command a lot of respect and the way forward,” he said, adding that court litigation is not the way forward for resolving disputes.
Chief Justice of Madras High Court SV Gangapurwala, in his address, stated that 3.6 lakh cases were settled in Tamil Nadu through lok adalats last year resulting in settlement of Rs 2,652 crore.