January offered two snapshots of how far India's mediation ecosystem has come since the Mediation Act 2023. In New Delhi, the Singapore International Mediation Centre convened a Specialist Mediators' Workshop for around twenty senior practitioners drawn from Indian firms and the judiciary. And in the American Bar Association's January dispute-resolution review, analysts described the Act as transforming dispute resolution in India.
The Act built the scaffolding for that transformation: statutory recognition of mediated settlement agreements enforceable as court decrees, a Mediation Council of India to set standards, timelines designed to keep mediations from drifting, and express provision for online and community mediation.
Practitioners still point to a conspicuous gap — the statute stopped short of implementing the Singapore Convention for foreign-seated mediations, leaving cross-border enforceability to older, clumsier routes. Analyses by leading Indian firms have flagged the omission as the Act's most significant unfinished business.
Even so, the direction is clear. With the Supreme Court's settlement drives, a professionalizing private mediation bar in Bengaluru and Mumbai, and international institutions investing in Indian training cohorts, mediation in India is moving from the margins of practice toward its center.
