Arbitration- A viable option for expedient justice.

Rule of law and access to justice at a reasonable cost and within a reasonable period of time go hand in hand, one without the other is nothing but mere rhetoric.?Access to justice is an intrinsic part of today's rights jurisprudence and has been recognised as an essentially human and fundamental right.?Access to justice serves multiple purposes, it is an enabler of rights, gives voice to the marginalised, and helps bring accountability to governments.?Therefore access to justice at a reasonable cost and time can have benefits at the individual and at a societal level.

Alternative dispute resolution mechanisms are not a 21st-century concept in India, some institutions like village panchayats, councils of the elders, and jati panchayats were prevalent in the ancient and medieval times as a mechanism to dispense justice in a decentralised manner in a cost and time-efficient manner, however, due to lack of formal institutionalisation the process had many drawbacks.?

The establishment of a formalised judicial structure in the country, there appeared to be a movement away from ADRs. However, in the past decade, there has been a push to revive ADR structures to enable them to supplement the present legal court system. Alternative dispute resolution refers to any method of resolving disputes without stepping into a courtroom. Different types of ADR available today are arbitration, conciliation, mediation, negotiation, and Lok Adalat.?Arbitration is the dispute settlement process between two agreeable parties to appoint an arbitrator to adjudicate the matter and provide a binding solution to the dispute. It is a way to settle disputes outside the courts thereby saving time and resources.

Arbitration has certain innate advantages. The flexibility the arbitration procedure offers in terms of fixing the venue, timeline, an arbitrator of one’s choice, and the processes is a definite departure from the court system. In the Court system, where there are incidents of trials lasting over a decade, with multiple judges hearing the dispute at different stages, the mental agony and the trauma of having to be part of court proceedings for years together can be offset if not evaded in an arbitration process.?

Another most striking feature of arbitration is that the process has to be carried out within a set time frame. According to a study, in about 50 percent of the cases, the journey from the evidence stage to final judgement takes up to 384 days i.e. almost 1 year. Compare this to an arbitration procedure, wherein the time period for the whole process is capped at 12 months in total.?

Arbitration does come with its share of shortcomings, the arbitration process can at times be shrouded with opacity. The level of confidentiality can sometimes work against the parties as the past decisions of arbitrators are usually not publicly accessible, which is not the case in courts. The lack of appeal is another shortcoming, the arbitrator’s decision cannot be appealed in general but there are some limited grounds on which it can be appealed but they are more of an exception than a norm.

In today’s day and age where food delivery happens within minutes, money is transferred in seconds, it is about time access to justice is expedited as well and this is where arbitration as a medium can be a viable option.

( This article is co-authored by Aishwarya Anathkumar and Varun Prasad )