High Court of Jammu and Kashmir in collaboration with Government of J&K on Thursday organised a three-day “Induction Training Programme on Mediation for Judges and Lawyers.”
The training programme that ends on Saturday is beingconducted at J&K State Judicial Academy Moominabad Srinagar in whichvarious judicial officers, resource persons, lawyers will throw light onMediation and Conciliation.
The judicial officers who spoke on the occasion said thatmediation is emerging as an effective tool for conflict resolution and the needof the hour is to play an active role in making the mediation a success and aviable alternative.
The purpose of the training programme is to impart trainingto the judges and lawyers so that they can be excellent mediators that wouldultimately help them in mediation and conflict resolution.
Chief Justice High Court of Jammu and Kashmir, Justice GitaMittal spoke on various aspects of mediation and said that mediation isemerging as an effective and alternative tool for dispute resolution and saidthat single handed approach cannot be adopted for handling all kinds ofdisputes.
Chief Justice said that mediation centres are not only forremoving the burgeoning problem of judiciary but they also meet the inherentneeds of society and community. Justice Mittal said that mediation centresenable the resolution of disputes in the manner the disputing parties desireand also said that Judicial officers have to evolve mechanism to determine thecases for referral to the mediation centres.
About the progress made in mediation in Jammu and Kashmir,Chief Justice expressed her resolve to bring the mediation centres of the stateat par with the rest of the country to ensure access to justice for all.
Justice Mittal said that it is her endeavour to keep pacewith other developments in rest of the country in terms of judicial sectors andexpressed her satisfaction over the support from government and the work legalservices authorities have been doing on this front.
About the training programme, Justice Mittal said they haveundertaken these training sessions in Jammu and Kashmir and lawyers shouldencourage and support the process of mediation because their support iscritical for the entire process.
Chief Justice Gita Mittal also exhorted upon the lawyers andjudicial officers to treat this training session as a serious business and seethis as an opportunity to enhance their knowledge level in terms of mediationand conciliation.
About the expansion of the mediation programme, she saidthat it is high time to introduce mediation habits at school level so that wewill have a peace building habit at a younger age and train children asmediators. Chief Justice also lauded the efforts of the state judiciary interms of the digitisation of the services like digital signatures back-ups,SMSs and other digital services.
Chairman, Mediation and Conciliation Centre, Justice DhirajSingh Thakur in his keynote address highlighted the need and importance of thesubject and said that mediation centres will play a critical role in timelydelivery of justice as courts have been inundated by the huge inflow oflitigations.
He lauded the efforts of Chief Justice in bringing themediation centres to the door steps of the public. He said that there washardly any policy to impart training to the mediators and the trainingprogrammes like this is a step in the right direction.
While speaking on various legal aspects, Justice Thakur alsosaid that mediation process reduces cost and time of litigants and thedisputing parties accept the judgment of mediators with consensus and withoutany remorse.
In his welcome address, Justice Rashid Ali Dar gave aninsight about the goals and objectives of the programme and said that mediationcentres will only be successful by imparting training to referral judges. Hesaid that mediation and conciliation is the hallmark of the civilisation andthe establishment of mediation centres is an important aspect of conflictresolution.
Principal District and Sessions Judge Srinagar, Abdul RashidMalik while speaking on the occasion gave an idea of mediation process and onthe exhaustive role it could play in dispute resolution mechanism.
In his address, he also emphasised the benefits of mediationprocess and said that it is low cost, effective and peaceful.
While thanking Chief Justice Gita Mittal for her masterlyguidance, Malik also said that mediation and conciliation is emerging as afast-growing resolution mechanism which is simple and flexible. He also threwlight on the work Chief Justice has been doing in legal services, mediation,juvenile justice and for those living on the margins of the society to ensureaccess to justice for all and the excellent work is already in the publicdomain.
The other dignitaries present on the occasion includedAdvocate General D.C. Raina, Secretary Law Department Achal Sethi, RegistrarGeneral High Court Sanjay Dhar, Director J&K State Judicial Academy andother officers of the Registry.
Renowned Resource Persons, including senior advocate J PSengh, senior advocate, Sudhanshu Batra, advocate Veena Ralli, Advocate AnujAgarwal who are well known in the country as mediators and advocates conductedthe working sessions on different aspects of mediation which will continue forthe next two days.