Judges must go through mediation training: Retired Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul

Former Supreme Court judge Justice SK Kaul on Monday said the judges must go through mediation training programmes as the flexibility of mediation is far wider than normal legal process..Mediation is a party-driven process and not a legal driven process from an outsider, he explained. The parties to the dispute can themselves decide the procedure and how they would like to resolve it, he pointed out..Justice Kaul was delivering the keynote address during a roundtable event at the India International University of Legal Education and Research (IIULER) in Goa..Mediation is a better solution to legal disputes because parties are in-charge of what the solution would be, Justice Kaul said. He noted that at times, the conventional legal system fails to provide a party with a solution that he/she would have wanted as the party has no direct role to play in it..Justice Kaul recounted that initially, lawyers in India were not in favour of making mediation a part of the legal system and even staged agitations against it. He added that it is very heartening to see that legal profession has accepted it now and that the Bar Council of India (BCI) has even taken an initiative towards making it a part of legal studies..He went on to remark that mediation is not a substitute for the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) but a supplement and complement to it. The usefulness of mediation starts from the pre insolvency stage in which financially distressed but viable business groups explore options for resolution, particularly in countries where no effective insolvency frameworks are in place, he added..Mediation in some way also structures out-of-box solutions and is a win-win situation in which two parties are able to carry their business in collaboration, he stated.There is an element of separating the people from the problem in mediation and also helps in maintaining the normal relationships required for working of a business and negating the possibilities of sideways litigation, he said..Justice Kaul also suggested taking advantage of the international norms in mediation as done during the drafting of the IBC in India. He recalled how the government was initially averse to creating a centralized mediation mechanism and was in favour of statute specific one..Another former Supreme Court Judge, Justice AK Sikri, who is currently an International Judge at Singapore International Commercial Court also participated in the roundtable event.