Alternative Dispute Resolution
Alternative Dispute Resolution means settlement of dispute outside the court. It is new in practice. Actually, it was there in India earlier also, but, it was an informal process of settling the disputes. One of the main objectives behind this is to lessen the burden of the courts. It is on the parties to the dispute that, whether they want the court to interfere or not in the matter in controversy, or, they want to go with the ADR. But, this is must when any of the terms and conditions of the contract between the parties lay that in the case of dispute parties must resort to the ADR methods.
Some of the ADR methods are – arbitration, negotiation, mediation, conciliation, etc. It can be used in all cases (except non-bailable offences) but is mostly used in the disputes of contractual nature or family disputes.
Decisions arrived to at by any of the ADR techniques may or may not be final. In other words, we can say that, it may have both binding and non-binding effects .
Statutes and laws that enable it
- Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996
- Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987
- Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 ( through Section 89 of the Act)
Need of ADR
The present system of dispute resolution certainly suffers from four major inadequacies and deficiencies-
- delayed justice
- huge expenses
- complex and technical in nature
- Dispute resolution as of we now have is not readily contributing to harmony in as much as the end of first round of litigation is inevitably the commencement of the second round of litigation and harmony remains a distant dream.
Advantages of ADR
- It is cheap in comparison to the litigation.
- It consumes less time.
- It is free from technicalities.
- With a variety of options available, one can choose the best method suited to their situation.
Disadvantages of ADR
- Sometimes ADR techniques do not lead to any resolution.
- At times, it may also prove to be wastage of time. This is so because if n clause for the reference of the disputes to ADR is not mentioned in the contract and Court sends the matter to ADR that may have a non-binding effect, then, in such cases, if the parties are not satisfied with the solution then the end up by knocking the doors of the Court.
