Mediation Act lost in government inaction

The Supreme Court of India proposed standalone legislation on mediation more than five years ago, citing the mounting backlog of cases and the nature of many civil disputes that can be amicably resolved without judicial intervention. But the fate of the Mediation Act, 2023, remains uncertain.

The speed with which the Act was passed by both Houses of Parliament gives little indication of the government’s intention to fully implement it. This is despite the Union law minister often invoking the Mahabharata, Sri Krishna’s failed mediation attempts, and India’s long tradition of mediation as part of its social value system.

In January 2020, the Supreme Court appointed senior mediator Niranjan Bhat to lead a commission to draft legislation on mediation. The draft was submitted to the government, which placed it in the public domain for feedback on November 5, 2021. Soon after, on December 20, 2021, the Mediation Bill, 2021, was introduced in the Rajya Sabha and referred to the Department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law, and Justice for study and report on December 22, 2021.

The committee sought feedback from a wide range of stakeholders, including government officials, lawyers, mediators, and institutions. To gather more detailed comments and deepen consultations, it published a news release and paid study visits to Chennai, Bengaluru, and Mumbai, where it engaged with high court judges, bar councils, and mediation institutions. This extensive outreach was aimed at ensuring a comprehensive understanding of the Bill’s implications.

Nearly four years after the SC’s original recommendation, the Bill -- with Cabinet revisions -- was passed by the Rajya Sabha on August 1, 2023, and the Lok Sabha on August 7, 2023. It received the President’s approval and was published in the official Gazette on September 15, 2023, as the Mediation Act, 2023 (Act). Since then, however, it has languished on the ministry’s shelf, unimplemented for 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; to mandate 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 need of mediation institutions to operate at the national, subnational, and community levels. The philosophy behind the act’s enactment was attracting 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 July 1, 2025, by the Supreme Court’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 finalising 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 number of cases in court is 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, NGOs, and everyone understand 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 a former international senior advisor, United Nations Development Programme)