By Vijay L. Kelkar,Pradeep S. Mehta
India’s courts are overburdened’ is a no brainer. As of July 2025, there were more than 52.4 million pending cases, including 46 million in subordinate courts, 6.3 million in high courts and 86,723 in the Supreme Court, according to law ministry data placed in the Rajya Sabha on 31 July.
To these dazzling numbers, one can add an equivalent number of matters pending in our tribunals and administrative machinery. It is a delight for lawyers, whose numbers too are rising, thanks to special law universities dotted all over the country. What is the way forward to reduce this burden?
Ordinary disputes can take years, even decades, to reach a conclusion.
This backlog erodes public confidence, raises the cost of doing business and imposes an intolerable burden on citizens. Alternative dispute resolution (ADR)—which covers arbitration, mediation, conciliation, negotiation and the use of Lok Adalats—is not a cure-all, but it is one of the most practical ways to deliver timely resolution and justice.
Lok Adalats illustrate ADR’s potential at scale. National Lok Adalat campaigns, held under the Legal Services Authorities Act, have swiftly disposed of millions of cases. In September 2024 alone, over 12.5 million cases were settled nationwide, according to National Legal Services Authority data.
Despite this success, ADR’s reach remains uneven. Many litigants do not know that mediation and conciliation are options. Concerns about enforceability have persisted; until recently, mediated settlements lacked statutory backing unless converted into a court decree. The Mediation Act of 2023 now provides enforceability and confidentiality, but implementation remains uneven.
India’s experience with arbitration shows how the promise of ADR can falter in practice. The White Industries vs India (2011) case illustrated this problem.
An Australian company, after winning an arbitral award against a state-owned enterprise in India, spent nearly a decade under International Criminal Court rules to have it enforced.
Prolonged judicial delays forced the company to invoke the India-Australia Bilateral Investment Treaty; an international tribunal held that India had failed to provide an “effective means” of enforcing arbitral awards, a finding that dented India’s reputation as an arbitration-friendly jurisdiction.
More recently, the Supreme Court’s 2024 judgement in Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Ltd vs Delhi Airport Metro Express Pvt Ltd has again raised concerns about excessive judicial intervention. Despite the arbitral award being upheld through multiple rounds of litigation, India’s apex court entertained a rare curative petition, effectively reopening a settled commercial dispute.
By re-examining the merits of the case and revisiting factual findings of the arbitral tribunal, the court blurred the boundary between limited judicial review and substantive re-adjudication.
Globally, however, ADR has become integral to justice systems. In the US and UK, courts often require mediation early in civil cases, with penalties for refusal. In the commercial realm, Singapore and Hong Kong stand out as arbitration hubs, backed by modern laws and effective institutions.
The Singapore International Arbitration Centre handled 625 new cases worth approximately $11.86 billion in 2024, with over 90% being international.
India has made progress but still lags global leaders. Unlike Singapore’s coordinated ADR system, supported by modern statutes and integrated institutions, India’s framework remains spread across multiple laws such as the Arbitration and Conciliation Act of 1996, the Legal Services Authorities Act of 1987 and now the Mediation Act of 2023.
The new Act is a landmark, but enforcement remains uneven, awareness limited and court referrals inconsistent. By contrast, the Singapore Mediation Centre (SMC) has handled over 6,500 mediations worth $15.6 billion, with a 67% settlement rate and over 90% of cases resolved in a single day (SMC statistics, 2023).
Closing this gap requires a multi-pronged approach. First, we must operationalize the Mediation Act with detailed rules on confidentiality, limited review grounds and speedy enforcement to build confidence. Second, courts must institutionalize early triage by directing small-value commercial, family, consumer and property disputes to mediation, while reserving full judicial access for public interest, criminal and constitutional matters.
Capacity building is vital for people to appreciate the use of ADR as a swifter way forward. Technology can also be transformative. Online dispute resolution (ODR) platforms can offer fast, low-cost redressal for small-value and cross-border cases, provided they protect due process, confidentiality and enforcement. ODR must integrate offline support centres in rural and underserved areas, so that digital justice does not become another form of exclusion (Niti Aayog’s ODR Policy Plan, 2023).
For effective judicial reform, one among many measures would be to move ADR from the margins to the mainstream. That will require policy reforms, professional standards, tech platforms and public education.
The rewards are significant: fewer clogged courtrooms, lower costs for litigants, faster relief for citizens and a system closer to the constitutional promise of accessible and affordable justice. If implemented with care, ADR can transform not just statistics, but the lived experience of justice for millions.
Anushka Kewlani of CUTS contributed to this article.
The authors are, respectively, vice president of Pune International Centre and secretary general of CUTS International.
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