Supreme Court: In the petition seeking for standard operating procedures for implementation of pre-litigation mediation under Section 12A of Commercial Courts Act, 2015, the 3-judge bench of SA Bobde, CJ and AS Bopanna and V. Ramasubramanian, JJ has admitted the application for intervention made by Bridge Mediation, a policy think tank based out of New Delhi, seeking the creation of a committee of experts to guide on the ground level issues arising out of the implementation of Section 12A of Commercial Courts Act, 2015.
The bench has also sought clarification from respondent Union of India and the High Courts of several states on whether the Parliament is considering rollout of a standalone legislation on mediation in India. The matter has been listed on 25th March, 2021.
Anuroop Omkar, one of the founders of Bridge said,
“We have been continuously working to bring in laws that promote commercial mediation of disputes in India. We have trained more than 350 people in commercial mediation, insolvency and turnaround under the aegis of Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Government of India. But the real mediation revolution shall not come unless experts who understand what are international standards in mediation, problems with ground level implementation in India and expectations of commercial users do not join hands in laying down better processes for implementation of Section 12A of Commercial Courts Act, 2015. There is need to give parties freedom to choose their own mediator and institutional mediation service provider. It is time to make mediation a user friendly experience.”
[Youth Bar Association of India and Other v. Union of India and Others. WP(C) No. 000849 of 2020, order dated 19.03.2021]
For Bridge Mediation: Senior Advocate Arvind P. Datar and Advocate Anuroop Omkar, Partner of AK and Partners along with Advocate on Record in the matter Adv. Surabhi Guleria.