Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi said the Indian legal system now treats litigation like a war, with lawyers rarely conceding even an inch. Speaking at the Supreme Court Bar Association conference, he urged stronger mediation and rethinking dispute resolution mechanisms.
Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi said that the Indian legal system increasingly treats litigation like a war, with lawyers often unwilling to concede even an inch.
He stressed the need to strengthen mediation as a viable alternative for resolving disputes.
Rohatgi spoke at the inaugural national conference organised by the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), held under the theme “Reimagining Judicial Governance: Strengthening Institutions for Democratic Justice.”
The first panel addressed “Making Justice Real: The Transformative Role of Mediation.”
Opening the discussion, Rohatgi noted that the conference atmosphere itself resembled mediation rather than the adversarial setting of a courtroom.
He said,
“It is a great honour to be here and to look at all our friends from the Supreme Court in a very different environment. This is actually an environment which would be akin to mediation, not an environment of a war or fighting in court with lawyers on both sides without giving an inch,”
Reflecting on the prevailing litigation culture, he said lawyers must accept some responsibility for fostering an excessively combative approach.
Rohatgi observed,
“What have we grown up with? Lawyers doing litigation, taking it like a war, not an inch to be given, not an inch of suggestions, no attempt to try and settle. This is what we have become. And I must say, the lawyers’ body must take a fair share of this blame,”
He contrasted this with historical leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi and Abraham Lincoln, who often favoured settlement over protracted legal battles. Today, he said, litigants and their counsel frequently pursue every available stage of appeal.
Rohatgi observed,
“Today, we have a system where the litigant and the lawyer don’t trust anybody. So first court, appellate court, High Court, Supreme Court, review, curative, all this will go on and the war is endless,” he remarked.
Rohatgi highlighted the diminished practical value of delayed outcomes: if a litigant recovers a small sum after many years, its real worth is negligible.
He noted,
“If you had to get one rupee in a settlement and you get one rupee after fifteen years, the actual value of that one rupee is nothing. But that’s how the system has become,”
He also criticised the current use of mediation as often a temporary halt rather than a true resolution mechanism.
Adding that such pauses resemble ceasefires more than settlements,he said,
“The court sends it to mediation. The mediator tries it, but the positions are so hardened. We say, we’ll see in mediation what happens. It doesn’t happen. We come back to court and the same battle continues,”
To reduce prolonged disputes, Rohatgi proposed empowering trusted court-appointed experts whose decisions would be final, thereby avoiding extended arbitration and litigation.
He suggested revisiting traditional community dispute-resolution practicesdrawing inspiration from the panchas system depicted in Premchand’s “Panch Parmeshwar” as a basis for innovative, modern solutions.
He said,
“Maybe if we resolve our outlooks and come back to the old ways of panchas, this could be an innovation,”
The panel also included Supreme Court Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta, and Senior Advocate Sriram Panchu.
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