Courtrooms have winners & losers, but mediation’s therapeutic: CJI | India News

NEW DELHI: CJI Sanjiv Khanna on Saturday stated courtroom adjudication is grim and shallow, because it leads to a winner and a loser – a course of that fails to heal strained relationships between events. He contrasted this with mediation, which, he stated, seeks to supply a holistic answer that restores relationships.
Speaking on the first National Mediation Conference inaugurated by President Droupadi Murmu, CJI Khanna stated ‘neighborhood mediation‘ provision within the Mediation Act, 2023 is salutary as this may be an efficient software to resolve disputes which can be prone to have an effect on peace, concord and tranquility amongst residents or households in a particular space or locality. “This is an important step forward,” he stated.
Justice Khanna stated sadly mediation, which is ingrained in our civilisational historical past, isn’t mainstreamed and never first alternative of events to a dispute regardless that fashionable mediation instruments can present answer to litigants, which is unavailable in courtrooms.
“In courtroom adjudication, one party is right, the other is wrong. In this way, courtroom litigation and adjudication are grim and shallow. At times, the root cause remains unaddressed, and the ailment and pain remain. The relationships are strained, if not broken. There is a winner, there is a loser,” he stated.
In distinction, mediation seeks to establish and treatment the foundation trigger with a course of that delves deeper into the difficulty, the reason for the misunderstanding between the events and makes an attempt a holistic answer with out getting mired in authorized procedures to revive the connection between events, he added.
“Because process is voluntary and participatory, solution reached is less traumatic, more humane and acceptable,” Justice Khanna stated, including that between 2016 and early 2025, a staggering 7,57,173 instances had been settled utilizing mediation.
Comparing the courtroom justice supply mechanism and the mediation crafted decision, CJI Khanna stated whereas a decide makes an attempt to search out whois at fault among the many litigants who advance their case by means of argumentative legal professionals, a mediator goes past the binaries and makes an attempt to resolve misunderstandings, which is commonly the mom of most litigations.
He stated, “Mediation offers space by undoing complexity. It does not involve legal and procedural complexities. It is flexible and personalised, not bound by rigid procedure. And above all, it is empathetic – aiming not to win over the other side, but to bring together.”
Mediator’s neutrality is essential to attain decision of a dispute, stated Justrice Khanna, including that “a skilled mediator senses not only what is being said, but what lies beneath the words.”