The Supreme Court of India has launched SAMADHAN SAMAROH 2026 — Supreme Court Action for Mediated Adjudication and Disputes Harmonization Across Nation — a nationwide consent-based dispute resolution initiative that will culminate in a special Lok Adalat at the Court itself from August 21 to 23.
The program invites advocates and litigants with matters pending before the Supreme Court to settle them through amicable, mediated resolution, with both physical and virtual participation on offer. State legal services authorities across the country, from Puducherry to Chhattisgarh, are running parallel outreach campaigns to identify suitable cases.
The initiative is the latest and most visible expression of a policy arc that runs through the Mediation Act 2023 and the Mediation and Conciliation Project Committee's 'Mediation for the Nation' campaigns: confronting the world's largest judicial backlog not only with more judges, but with fewer contested cases.
Lok Adalats — people's courts that record consent settlements with the force of a decree — have long moved enormous volumes of cases in India's lower judiciary. Bringing the format to the apex court, under an acronym that spells 'resolution festival', is as much a signal to the bar as to litigants: settlement is no longer the second-best outcome.
