Vinay Vaish, Joint Managing Partner, Vaish Associates Advocates
Email: vinay@vaishlaw.com +919810200225

An interesting feature of the Indian legal system is the existence of voluntary agencies called Lok Adalats (Peoples' Courts). These forums resolve disputes through methods like Conciliation and Negotiations and are governed by the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987. Every award of Lok Adalats shall be deemed to be a decree of a civil court and shall be binding on the parties to the dispute. The ADR mechanism has proven to be one of the most efficacious mechanisms to resolve commercial disputes of an international nature. In India, laws relating to resolution of disputes have been amended from time to time to facilitate speedy dispute resolution in sync with the changing times. The Judiciary has also encouraged out-of-court settlements to alleviate the increasing backlog of cases pending in the courts. To effectively implement the ADR mechanism, organisations like the Indian Council of Arbitration (ICA) and the International Centre for Alternate Dispute Resolution (ICADR) were established. The ICADR is an autonomous organisation, working under the aegis of the Ministry of Law & Justice, Government of India, with its headquarters at New Delhi, to promote and develop ADR facilities and techniques in India. ICA was established in 1965 and is the apex arbitral organisation at the national level. The main objective of the ICA is to promote amicable and quick settlement of industrial and trade disputes by arbitration. Moreover, the Arbitration Act, 1940 was also repealed and a new and effective arbitration system was introduced by the enactment of The Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996. This law is based on the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) model of the International Commercial Arbitration Council.

Likewise, to make the ADR mechanism more effective and in coherence with the demanding social scenario, the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 has also been amended from time to time to endorse the use of ADR methods. Section 89 of the Code of Civil Procedure, as amended in 2002, has introduced conciliation, mediation and pre-trial settlement methodologies for effective resolution of disputes. Mediation, conciliation, negotiation, mini trial, consumer forums, Lok Adalats and Banking Ombudsman have already been accepted and recognised as effective alternative dispute-resolution methodologies.

A brief description of few widely used ADR procedures is as follows:

  1. Negotiation: A non-binding procedure in which discussions between the parties are initiated without the intervention of any third party, with the object of arriving at a negotiated settlement of the dispute.
  2. Conciliation: In this case, parties submit to the advice of a conciliator, who talks to the each of them separately and tries to resolve their disputes. Conciliation is a non-binding procedure in which the conciliator assists the parties to a dispute to arrive at a mutually satisfactory and agreed settlement of the dispute.
  3. Mediation: A non-binding procedure in which an impartial third party known as a mediator tries to facilitate the resolution process but he cannot impose the resolution, and the parties are free to decide according to their convenience and terms.
  4. Arbitration: It is a method of resolution of disputes outside the court, wherein the parties refer the dispute to one or more persons appointed as an arbitrator(s) who reviews the case and imposes a decision that is legally binding on both parties. Usually, the arbitration clauses are mentioned in commercial agreements wherein the parties agree to resort to an arbitration process in case of disputes that may arise in future regarding the contract terms and conditions.

While the judicial process is largely considered fair, a large backlog of cases to be heard and frequent adjournments result in considerable delays before a case is decided. However, matters of priority and public interest are often dealt with expeditiously and interim relief is usually allowed in cases, on merits.

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