Fate of Mediation Act remains unknown

The Supreme Court of India proposed a separate standalone legislation on mediation in India more than five years ago, citing the mounting caseload on Indian courts and the nature of many civil disputes that can be settled amicably without the intervention of the courts, but the fate of the Mediation Act 2023, remains unknown. The speed with which the mediation act was passed by both houses of parliament does not clearly reveal any intention of the government to fully implement the act, despite our Union Law Minister taking every opportunity to speak about the Mahabharata, Sri Krishna, and his failed mediation attempts, as well as how India has a culture of mediation in its social value ecosystem.

In January 2020, the Supreme Court appointed a senior mediator, Mr Niranjan Bhat, to lead a commission that would write mediation legislation. It was then given to the government as a suggestion by the Supreme Court. On 5 November 2021, the government made the draft Mediation Bill available for public feedback on their website. Following that, on 20 December 2021, the Government introduced the Mediation Bill, 2021, in the Rajya Sabha and referred it to the Department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law, and Justice for study and report on 22 December 2021. The group solicited feedback from a variety of stakeholders, including government officials, attorneys, and mediation professionals.

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They also sought comments from the general public and a variety of mediation institutions. To gather more detailed comments, the committee published a news release and paid study visits to Chennai, Bengaluru, and Mumbai, where they spoke with important stakeholders including high court judges, bar councils, and mediation institutes. The goal of this extended outreach was to gain a thorough grasp of the bill’s ramifications from a variety of angles. Three years and eight months after the original recommendation of the Supreme Court of India, the finished bill was passed by the Rajya Sabha on 1 August 2023, and the Lok Sabha on 7 August 2023, with cabinet revisions.

Finally, the Bill obtained President’s approval and was published in the official Gazette on 15 September 2023, as the Mediation Act, 2023 (Act). We thus have a mediation act available for implementation at any time, which has been collecting dust on the ministry’s shelf for the past two years. The act’s purpose and intention are to encourage and facilitate mediation, particularly institutional mediation, for the resolution of civil and commercial disputes, mandatory pre-institutional mediation in commercial disputes; to enforce mediated settlement agreements; to establish a body for the registration of mediators; to encourage community mediation; to make online mediation an acceptable and cost-effective process; and to address matters related to or incidental thereto.

The court-annexed mediation facilities have gained both renown and notoriety over the years, and the courts and governments are now in the need of mediation institutions to operate at the national, subnational, and community levels. The philosophy behind the act’s enactment was to attract the attention of interested national and international NGOs, societies, and law firms to establish institutional mediation service centres; however, the government’s intentions behind the act’s non-operationalisation even after two years of enactment and budget releases in successive budgets are unknown.

The Mediation for the Nation, a 90-day mediation drive launched on 1 July 2025 by the Supreme Court of India’s Mediation and Conciliation Project Committee (MCPC) and the National Legal Service Authority (NALSA), is ending on September 30, and no one knows what its impact and successes have been. No mediation institutions in the country, which were originally consulted for conceptualising, drafting and finalisation of the Mediation Act, 2023, engaged in the 90-day mediation drive for the simple reason that their existence must be recognised by the Mediation Council of India in order to be a mediation service provider within the meaning of the act.

The cases in court are not waiting for the government to fully implement the Mediation Act and empower mediation service providers to assist people in conflicts. While writing this article, the National Judicial Data Grid reported a total case burden on Indian courts of 4.77 crore, with 3.66 crore being criminal cases and 1.11 crore being civil cases, with 16.71 lakh criminal and 9.77 lakh civil cases instituted the day before. The government, legislators, courts, N G Os, and everyone understands how critical it is now to fully operationalise institutional mediation in order to increase access to swift justice and ensure that disputes are resolved peacefully. The ball is now in the government’s court. (The writer is former International Senior Advisor, United Nations Development Programme.)