MEDIATION OF COMMERCIAL DISPUTES IN INDIA

Abstract

Resolving commercial disputes in India can often be harder than one may imagine. While it is not difficult to file a civil proceeding in India, it is a wellknown fact that courts in India are clogged with a burgeoning number of cases. It is not unusual to see cases linger unresolved for even decades at a time. Though the reasons for such delays is a subject beyond the purport of this paper, such delays do not work for commercial disputes where time is often equivalent to money. This led to an increased adoption of alternative dispute resolution methods, particularly arbitration. Arbitration provided an attractive alternative to the courts, where once adopted was binding on the parties and the award of the arbitral tribunal was equivalent to a decree of the court. However, over time, arbitration has become expensive, complex, and time-consuming. While it is still considered a better option than traditional court litigation, a void was felt for effective dispute resolution for commercial disputes, where the point in issue was often short and simple. While mediation is certainly not a new method to resolve disputes, of late, it often finds its way into legal chatter for such matters. This could probably be attributed to two reasons, first, the United Nations Convention on International Settlement Agreements resulting from Mediation to which India is a signatory, and second, the lockdown imposed to control the spread of COVID-19