Alternative Dispute Resolution in India

The Indian Government had made an important legislative intervention by way of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 which largely incorporated International development such as the ‘UNICITRAL Model Rules’ on arbitration and the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards. However, disputes several years of the operation of this statue, there is a distinct preponderance in favor of ad-hoc arbitration mechanism.

It is in the sitting that it is important to educate the business community in India about the merits of relying on institutional arbitration mechanism. By resorting to institutional mechanism, parties can ensure that their disputes will be resolved under globally accepted and updated arbitration rule coupled with supervision by personnel with expertise in the area. Furthermore, reliance on recognized international arbitral institutions has positive correlation with the recognition and enforcement arbitral awards across different countries.

Alternative dispute resolution (ADR) is widely regarded as holding great promise for the low-cost and efficient resolution of consumer disputes, especially cross-border disputes. In the majority of member countries, policy initiatives recognizing the potential benefits of ADR have been developed. These initiatives aim at increasing the availability of effective, timely and cheap mechanisms as an alternative to  formal court-based dispute resolution. In some countries, state-run ADR mechanisms are very well developed, offering dispute resolution services for a wide range of consumer disputes.

In many other countries, state-run ADR schemes are available only on a sector or industry wide basis. Despite efforts to encourage the development and use of private-sector ADR for business to consumer disputes, there is evidence that the provision of such services remains patchy. These findings suggest that there is still room  for improvement in the development, promotion and use of fair and effective ADR services for business to  consumer disputes, especially for cross-border disputes.

While the two most common forms of ADR are arbitration and mediation, negotiation is almost always attempted first to resolve a dispute. It is the preeminent mode of dispute resolution. Negotiation allows the parties to meet in order to settle a dispute. The main advantage of this form of dispute settlement is that it allows the parties themselves to control the process and the solution.

THE PRESENT SCENARIO:-

The legal system in India is viewed by many as part of ‘colonial legacy’. Undoubtedly, judiciary is the important institution which has withstood many challenges during the last-more than fifty years to retain its integrity. But with the mounting pressure of cases-civil, criminal, revenue, industrial and others the workload of judiciary increased leaps and bound and it has now reached a stage of unmanageable magnitude and the cases remain undecided for years together for one reason or the other.

The preamble to the constitution of India promises to secure socio-economic and political justice and equality of status and of opportunity to all the citizens. Art. 39-A contains a directive principle which holds that the state will ensure that the legal system operates in a manner so as to promote justice to all an to ensure that no citizen is denied the opportunities of securing justice by reason of economic or any other disability. But the ground reality is that the law hardly reaches the vulnerable sections of the society here majority of the people are illiterate, rustic and rural and are ignorant about existence of their legal rights and remedies. And those who are aware of their right, find it difficult to get them translated into reality because of the legal and procedural ordeals on has to undergo in the process of litigation.

We also believe that more effective and useful Online consumer complaints in India must be formulated that expressly deal with e-commerce aspects in India. Let us hope that these suggestions would be implemented by Indian government very soon.