'Mediation best way to reduce backlog of cases'

Bangalore, Apr 01: Union Law Minister H R Bharadwaj today said Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) like mediation or conciliation was the best way to reduce the huge backlog of cases.

Speaking at the valedictory function of a training course for lawyers on Mediation, organised by the Bangalore Mediation Centre in association with the Institute for the Study and Development of Legal System (ISDLS), San Francisco, he said it would otherwise be impossible to resolve all the cases that come to various courts.

''When mediation is used to solve complicated cases like compensation paid by Union Carbide to the Bhopal gas tragedy victims and the Enron case in the US and negotiations are being extensively used to solve the complicated Sri Lanka-LTTE stand off, resolution of court cases through mediation must be given priority,'' he said.

Mr Bharadwaj said advocates should explore the lucrative field of professional mediation, which had become successful in the US.

Globalisation of law would see a sea change in the legal system and the Rs 150 billion US dollars world legal system beckoned the Indian legal experts. ''Unfortunately, our lawyers are not ready to accept the new developments and have failed to realise their true potential,'' he added.

He suggested that higher courts could give a push to the negotiated way of settling cases and the law and judicial system should adopt the ADR to the maximum extent. ''We should take a leaf out of the legal system in the US which had succeeded in using the ADR as an effective means to resolve disputes,'' Mr Bharadwaj said.

Appreciating the efforts made by the Karnataka High Court in setting up a Mediation Centre in the city, the Minister said all High Courts in the country could adopt such a method.

Mr Bharadwaj said, ''Access to judicial system has become a reality in India and the Centre fully understands the problems faced by the judicial fraternity due to mounting cases and shortage of manpower. I had recently spoken to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in this regard and the government is committed to set up new courts and appoint more judges.'' He said the government would accord priority to modernisation of courts and in this regard it had taken up computerisation of all High Courts.

Supreme Court Judge R V Raveendran said mediation, which was non-adjudicating and non-binding resolution, had not become popular due to the lacunae in the law. ''Section 89 of the CrPC is very confusing.. it does not accept mediation as an effective means of resolving cases. It says mediation and conciliation are different while technically they are the same. There has been a drafting error in Sub Section 2(c) and 2 (d) of the law, which should be looked into and amended soon,'' he said.

ISDLS Director Stephen Mayo said for this country, which faced a huge problem of resolving 30 million pending cases, the ADR would come in handy for speedy resolution of disputes.

''The pending cases have been an unaddressed challenge and the US also faced a similar problem, but to some extent due to adoption of time trial to resolve cases,'' he said.

Mr Mayo said Section 89, which dealt with using the ADR in solving court cases, was the same in England, Australia and India.

However, its implementation had been rather slow in India.

''Reluctance to disturb the age-old legal process is the reason for this,'' he opined.

Adoption of the ADR would help India resolve cases with regard to Intellectual Property like it was done in the US. ''With India, especially cities in South India, emerging as IT hub, lot of IPs are being created and better adoption of the ADR will be of great help,'' he said.

UNI