There has been an ongoing effort in India for at least the past 5 years to try and introduce a national mediation bill in Parliament. It now appears these efforts are finally bearing fruit.
The Ministry of Law and Justice recently released a first-ever draft mediation bill, and there is talk that Parliament could take action sometime next year. The Ministry is also inviting comments on the draft. See https://legalaffairs.gov.in/actsrulespolicies/comments-invited-draft-mediation-bill-2021. I had the fortune to participate as an advisor on some earlier discussions and drafts of the bill (and will just add that the recent draft has metamorphosed quite a bit since the last one I saw!).
India already has well developed court-connected mediation programs in many states, several of which are more than a decade old. The recent push for a national mediation law is intended to promote mediation to the public as a legitimate forum for resolving disputes, centralize the regulation of mediation and create a national Mediation Council, lay the foundation for India to ratify the Singapore Convention, and help India make the crucial next step from a largely court-connected mediation environment to a private market for mediation.
Please join me in congratulating our colleagues and FOIs in India for the progress they have made toward realizing a national mediation law!
A very interesting and comprehensive effort to regulate mediation in general, as opposed to court-connected mediation alone. Also interesting to compare to other efforts of such form, such as the 2017 Mediation Act of Ireland. As I (and possibly other subscribers to indisputably) am not familiar with our mediation and DR academic colleagues and FOIs in India, would you tell us a little about them so we can follow their work?