Mediation Act, 2023: A Critical Analysis Of India's New Mediation Framework
Vishwambhar Kanakdande & Aaditya Dhole, B.A. LL.B., Government Law College, Mumbai
ABSTRACT
India has now introduced a standalone law on mediation. The Mediation Act, 2023, which is the country's first comprehensive piece of legislation entirely devoted to this method of dispute resolution, was passed at a time when the Indian judicial system was dealing with a backlog of more than five crore cases. The Act includes a number of important reforms: it gives mediated settlement agreements the same effect as a court decree, provides strong confidentiality protections, sets up a regulatory authority for mediators, and establishes the basis for India to later become a party to the Singapore Convention on Mediation.
The paper gives a critical examination of the Act, looking not only at its various provisions but also at whether or not it is practical in real life. It reviews the history of mediation in India, analyzes the main provisions of the Act together with their limitations, looks at the important Supreme Court decisions that have influenced the mediation sector in India, and compares India's system with those of other countries. The paper concludes that the Act does constitute a major step forward, but its success will depend on effective implementation, a point on which Indian legal reform has in the past run into difficulties.
Keywords: Mediation Act 2023, pre-litigation mediation, mediated settlement agreement, Section 89 of the CPC, Singapore Convention, alternative dispute resolution, institutional mediation.
