CJI said: Mediation has made its case more quietly than arbitration, through outcomes rather than argument. The Mediation Act, 2023, gave India its first comprehensive Mediation statute, and pre-litigation mediation is gradually being treated as a genuine first resort rather than a formality to be recorded before a plaint is filed. I have, in the course of judicial work, encountered several disputes within family-run businesses — over succession, control, and years of accumulated grievance — that no verdict, however legally sound, could truly resolve. It was mediation, and the willingness of parties to sit across a table rather than across a courtroom, that ultimately preserved both — the enterprise and the relationships within it.”
