Justice Nagarathna advises wider use of mediation to ease burden on family courts
Supreme Court Justice B.V. Nagarathna has advocated for increased use of mediation and alternative dispute resolution to address the massive backlog in India's family courts. She argues that these methods offer faster, more confidential, and less adversarial outcomes for families.
Why it matters
Reducing the backlog in family courts is critical for protecting the welfare of families and ensuring timely access to justice in India.
Supreme Court judge Justice B.V. Nagarathna on Saturday (September 26, 2026) called for greater reliance on alternative dispute resolution in family litigation, arguing that mediation and conciliation could deliver faster, less adversarial outcomes than prolonged court battles.
Justice Nagarathna was delivering the inaugural address on ‘ADR (alternative dispute resolution) versus Adjudication in Family Disputes: Challenges and Way Forward’ at the Eastern Zone Regional Conference of the Committee for Family Court Matters, Supreme Court of India, in association with the Gauhati High Court, in Guwahati. The Supreme Court judge told delegates that alternative dispute resolution was never intended to compete with the courts but to complement them, offering speed, privacy, and confidentiality that conventional litigation often cannot.
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