Mediation is preferable to court cases. It saves time, money and the growth of acrimony between the contending parties. Also, the courts are saved from the addition of another case. The Union cabinet has cleared the mediation bill, 2021 after accepting some of the main changes suggested by the parliamentary standing committee. The law, when passed, would institutionalise mediation in civil and commercial disputes. But mediation before litigation will be made voluntary, not mandatory, following one of the changes recommended. Otherwise it could seem like a bar to accessing justice, apart from offering any contending party a loophole to delay going to court if it became necessary. The last possibility has been addressed by another recommendation: the mediation process is to be concluded within a maximum of 180 days and not in 180 days with an extension of another six months as the original bill had proposed. While a mediation law would undeniably be a good thing, it is not clear how it will help courts with cases already waiting, as the discourse around the 2021 bill seems to suggest. According to the figures declared by the government earlier this year, there are 4.32 crore cases pending in subordinate courts, nearly 60 lakh in high courts and 69,000 in the Supreme Court. No mediation can change this picture. Other changes need to be made to hurry things up — but even then, these numbers will take their toll on time.

Among the pending cases, 6.3 lakh are against government departments. That makes the government the major single litigant; will the mediation law apply to it? Institutionalising mediation is a progressive step, and the infrastructure — yet to be built — must ensure that its promise is fulfilled. That task would devolve to the proposed Mediation Council of India, which would be the central — and presumably only — agency creating mediation institutes and recruiting and training service providers. Centrally controlled government agencies, even those meant to work independently, have acquired a reputation for compliance and political bias in recent years. Any mediation must be free of extraneous pressures, just like a law court, in order to be meaningful. The process must also earn the trust of the people. Mediation will help in the future if these conditions are fulfilled. But it cannot lessen the courts’ burden of the moment.