‘Wasteful govt litigation hurting mediation growth’

‘If trials deliver verdicts, mediation delivers futures’

- Utkarsh Anand

Mediation cannot truly succeed in India until governments and their institutions stop pursuing litigation merely to exhaust judicial avenues despite having no likelihood of success, Supreme Court judge Justice BV Nagarathna has cautioned.

Such an approach, she said, drains the country’s resources and judicial time, while stunting the growth of mediation as a credible dispute-resolution mechanism.

Delivering her address at the 2nd National Mediation Conference in Bhubaneswar on Sunday, Justice Nagarathna pointed toa June 3, 2024 office memorandum issued by the Union finance ministry which laid out new guidelines for arbitration and mediation in domestic public procurement contracts. The memorandum acknowledged the “peculiarity of government-led litigation,” noting that acceptance of an adverse award without exhausting all judicial remedies was often seen by officials as “improper,” even though finality is built into the process.

Reacting to this, Justice Nagarathna said: “If a governmental body keeps initiating another round of litigation only to exhaust judicial avenues where there exists no likelihood of success, our country’s resources will continue to be improperly used and judicial time misallocated. For any radical improvement in government-led dispute resolution, and most specifically for propelling mediation as a legitimate method, there is an impending need to transform this outlook.”