Mediation emerging as a viable alternative for conflict resolution: Chief Justice Mittal

Srinagar: High Court (HC) of Jammu and Kashmir in collaboration with Government of J&K on Thursday organised a three-day “Induction Training Program on Mediation for Judges and Lawyers.”
The training program that ends on Saturday is being conducted at J&K State Judicial Academy Moominabad Srinagar in which various judicial officers, resource persons, lawyers will throw light on Mediation and Conciliation.
The judicial officers who spoke on the occasion said mediation is emerging as an effective tool for conflict resolution and the need of the hour is to play an active role in making the mediation a success and a viable alternative.
The purpose of the training program is to impart training to the judges and lawyers so that they can be excellent mediators that would ultimately help them in mediation and conflict resolution.
Chief Justice High Court of Jammu and Kashmir, Justice Gita Mittal spoke on various aspects of mediation and said mediation is emerging as an effective and alternative tool for dispute resolution and said single handed approach cannot be adopted for handling all kinds of disputes.
Chief Justice said mediation centres are not only for removing the burgeoning problem of judiciary but they also meet the inherent needs of society and community. Justice Mittal said mediation centres enable the resolution of disputes in the manner the disputing parties desire and also said Judicial officers have to evolve mechanism to determine the cases for referral to the mediation centres.
About the progress made in mediation in Jammu and Kashmir, Chief Justice expressed her resolve to bring the mediation centres of the state at par with the rest of the country to ensure access to justice for all.
Justice Mittal said it is her endeavour to keep pace with other developments in rest of the country in terms of judicial sectors and expressed her satisfaction over the support from government and the work legal services authorities have been doing on this front.
About the training program, Justice Mittal said they have undertaken these training sessions in Jammu and Kashmir and lawyers should encourage and support the process of mediation because their support is critical for the entire process.
Chief Justice Gita Mittal also exhorted upon the lawyers and judicial officers to treat this training session as a serious business and see this as an opportunity to enhance their knowledge level in terms of mediation and conciliation.
About the expansion of the mediation program, she said it is high time to introduce mediation habits at school level so that we will have a peace building habit at a younger age and train children as mediators. Chief Justice also lauded the efforts of the state judiciary in terms of the digitisation of the services like digital signatures back-ups, SMSs and other digital services.
Chairman, Mediation and Conciliation Centre, Justice Dhiraj Singh Thakur in his keynote address highlighted the need and importance of the subject and said mediation centres will play a critical role in timely delivery of justice as courts have been inundated by the huge inflow of litigations.
He lauded the efforts of Chief Justice in bringing the mediation centres to the door steps of the public. He said there was hardly any policy to impart training to the mediators and the training programs like this is a step in the right direction.
While speaking on various legal aspects, Justice Thakur also said mediation process reduces cost and time of litigants and the disputing parties accept the judgment of mediators with consensus and without any remorse.
In his welcome address, Justice Rashid Ali Dar gave an insight about the goals and objectives of the program and said mediation centres will only be successful by imparting training to referral judges. He said mediation and conciliation is the hallmark of the civilisation and the establishment of mediation centres is an important aspect of conflict resolution.
Principal District and Sessions Judge Srinagar, Abdul Rashid Malik while speaking on the occasion gave an idea of mediation process and on the exhaustive role it could play in dispute resolution mechanism.
In his address, he also emphasised the benefits of mediation process and said it is low cost, effective and peaceful.
While thanking Chief Justice Gita Mittal for her masterly guidance, Malik also said mediation and conciliation is emerging as a fast-growing resolution mechanism which is simple and flexible. He also threw light on the work Chief Justice has been doing in legal services, mediation, juvenile justice and for those living on the margins of the society to ensure access to justice for all and the excellent work is already in the public domain.
The other dignitaries present on the occasion included Advocate General D.C. Raina, Secretary Law Department Achal Sethi, Registrar General High Court Sanjay Dhar, Director J&K State Judicial Academy and other officers of the Registry.
Renowned Resource Persons, including senior advocate J P Sengh, senior advocate, Sudhanshu Batra, advocate Veena Ralli, Advocate Anuj Agarwal who are well known in the country as mediators and advocates conducted the working sessions on different aspects of mediation which will continue for the next two days.