'Arbitration no mere tool to unclog courts': CJI Surya Kant inaugurated Ramaiah International Moot and ADR Conference 2026

Bengaluru: Chief Justice of India Surya Kant on Saturday called for a radical shift in India’s legal psyche, urging the legal fraternity to stop treating arbitration as a mere tool to unclog courts and instead embrace it as a specialised, standalone system of commercial justice.

Inaugurating the Ramaiah International Moot and ADR Conference 2026 at Ramaiah College of Law, he said while tethering arbitration to “court backlogs” was a persuasive argument in 1990s, that justification has outlived its utility.

“Defining arbitration only by how many cases it removes from courts is like defining a hospital only by how many patients it keeps out of the emergency room,” Justice Surya Kant said. “It highlights a side effect, but misses the core purpose.”

The CJI expressed concern over the concentration of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) expertise in a few metropolitan hubs. He advocated for “district-level arbitration,” noting that while MSMEs and local supply chains across India’s taluks face complex disputes, meaningful access to arbitration remains a “metropolis-only” luxury. 

“Every state has commercial towns. We need to bring arbitration to their doorstep by involving local bar associations and chambers of commerce,” he said.

Addressing the procedural habits creeping into ADR, he cautioned against the litigation-ization of arbitration. He lamented the rise of lengthy submissions, endless oral arguments and frequent adjournments, traits typically associated with courtrooms, within supposedly flexible arbitration proceedings.

“India must develop its own ‘identity’ in arbitration, one that prioritises concise reasoning over oral endurance and views time limits as commitments, not suggestions,” he said.

Justice Surya Kant assured that the judiciary would do its part by resisting the temptation to second-guess arbitral awards. But, he challenged the ADR community to build a system worthy of that restraint by focusing on the quality and training of arbitrators.

The inaugural ceremony was attended by legal luminaries, including Supreme Court judges - Justices B V Nagarathna and N Kotiswar Singh.

Also present were Justice Vibhu Bakhru of the High Court, chairman of the Bar Council of India Manan Kumar Mishra and former Chief Justice of Sri Lanka Mohan Peiris.