PANAJI
'Mediation' (arbitration) a formally recognised legal intermediary in the Indian jurisprudence is increasingly gaining acceptability among warring litigants in Goa.
Statistics in a Central government report indicate that in the last five years some 1,196 civil cases were referred for arbitration through mediation centres in the State. Also, these proceedings at the mediation centres had successfully settled 106 cases in the same period.
In the year 2018-19, 170 cases were referred to mediation centres and 16 of them were resolved, the report said.
The number of litigants opting for mediation more than trebled in the following year (2019-20) with 573 matters being referred and as many as 65 being resolved.
In 2020-21, the first year of the pandemic however, this number dropped drastically to 128 cases. Only eight cases of mediation reached a conclusion in this year.
In 2021-22, again a year hit by the disruptions of the pandemic, only 117 cases were referred for mediation and six resolved while in 2022-23, 182 cases were sent for mediation and nine resolved.
This year (2023-24) until June, already 27 matters are referred to the mediation process and three cases have been resolved.
Due to wrangling between plaintiffs and defendants civil disputes drag on for years bogging down lower courts with burdensome backlog of cases. It is in this scenario that Mediation Centres were established to overcome prolonged delays and improve disposal rates.
In the normal course, if either of the parties involved in a suit decided by a court are dissatisfied with the judgment, they have the option of filing appeals before a higher court. But these appeals usually prolong for years and mediation is a via-media outside the judicial process but recognised by it.
The mediation process too is not instant and takes at least two years for resolution. Appeals or challenges to arbitration verdicts or decrees lie only before the higher judiciary -- High Courts and Supreme Court.
