People more likely to honour agreements reached through mediation than imposed decisions: CJI Surya Kant

Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant on Friday said people are more likely to honour settlements they have helped negotiate, citing studies which found voluntary compliance with agreements reached through mediation could be as high as 90 per cent.

Speaking at the International ADR Conference 2026 organised by Madhyam International Council for Conflict Resolution, the CJI said the strength of mediation lay in allowing parties to participate in framing the resolution themselves.

“A party who has had a genuine hand in drafting the terms of a resolution, rarely finds cause to abandon them later. Whereas, a party that is handed a verdict, however sound in law, retains every incentive to test its edges, to appeal, to delay, to search for the crevice through which grievance can still escape,” he said.

The CJI said litigation and arbitration determine who is right and what the law requires, while mediation asks what the parties can themselves live with, and what they can build upon.

However, he stressed that this did not make one mechanism inherently superior to another.

“Arbitration, in my opinion, has earned its place in the architecture of modern commerce,” CJI Kant said, particularly referring to engineering, valuation and cross-border contractual disputes.

At the same time, he cautioned that an arbitral award may not always bring a dispute to an actual end because it can be followed by challenges at the enforcement stage.

“Finality on paper and finality in fact are not always the same inheritance,” he said.

The CJI also highlighted how mediation had evolved from “stuffy rooms, worn-out furniture” and reluctant compromises to institutional centres with trained professionals, digital case management and online dispute resolution.

He said there was no reason India could not establish itself as a global centre for mediation and called for state-of-the-art infrastructure that keeps pace with the country's economic growth.

Delhi High Court Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya, who spoke subsequently, said mediation could eventually assume an even bigger role than arbitration.

“We might see a day when mediation may replace arbitration. I don't know,” he said.

Chief Justice Upadhyaya said arbitration had become important with the growth and globalisation of India's economy, but had also acquired some of the adversarial characteristics traditionally associated with litigation.

He recalled that he himself had been sceptical about mediation as a lawyer when court-annexed mediation centres were introduced. His perception changed after becoming a judge and working with mediation committees and the mediation centre at Lucknow.

“I could not realise at that time the potential of mediation,” he said, adding that India was yet to fully realise that potential.

The inaugural session also saw Senior Advocate and Madhyam President Amarjit Singh Chandhiok speak about the institution's mediation work. International mediator Judge Daniel Weinstein joined virtually and spoke about the growth of mediation across jurisdictions and the importance of taking cultural differences into account during negotiations.

The conference, themed ADR: Pathways to Legal Harmony, brought together judges, lawyers and ADR practitioners from India and abroad.