As of 31 December 2025, India's district and subordinate courts had 4,76,57,328 cases pending. Add in the High Courts and the Supreme Court, and the total goes past 5.3 crore [1].
That's not just a big number to open an article with. Behind it are real disputes: a vendor still waiting to get paid, a family arguing over how a property should be divided, a customer who wants a refund and can't get one, a worker owed wages.
Each of them is stuck in a system that, structurally, cannot move fast. Alternative dispute resolution, or ADR, exists to give these people a way out of that queue.
People use a handful of different names for this idea, more or less interchangeably: alternative dispute resolution, ADR, ADR dispute resolution, ADR conflict resolution, ADR resolution, alternative conflict resolution, and alternative dispute settlement.
A "settlement" is technically an outcome rather than a process, and "conflict resolution" is the wider term, covering disagreements that never turn into a legal dispute at all.
Whichever term brought you here, they're all pointing at the same starting point: resolving a dispute without asking a court to decide it for you.
What Does Alternative Dispute Resolution Actually Mean?
NITI Aayog's 2021 report on dispute resolution in India defines it this way: "Alternative Dispute Resolution is a method of settling disputes without litigation. While it is usually understood to mean arbitration, negotiation and mediation, it can include other mechanisms such as, but not limited to, resolution through an ombudsman, complaint boards, facilitated settlements" [2].
Two things follow from that definition that are worth being clear about. First, ADR isn't the same thing as "informal." Some ADR outcomes carry exactly the same legal weight as a court judgment, and one of them, as you'll see below, is actually harder to challenge than most court judgments are.
Second, ADR isn't one process. It's a category made up of several different mechanisms, each with its own rulebook for what counts as final.
For decades, arbitration in India ran on the Arbitration Act, 1940, a law that Indian courts themselves regularly criticised as slow and outdated.
In 1996, Parliament replaced it with the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, built around the UNCITRAL Model Law that most of the world already used for cross-border arbitration. That's why an arbitration award made in Mumbai today looks familiar to a lawyer in London or Singapore.
Four methods do most of the work in Indian ADR: negotiation, mediation, conciliation, and arbitration. There's a fifth, the Lok Adalat, which is a home-grown Indian institution that combines bits of the others. And sitting above all of them is Online Dispute Resolution, or ODR, not a separate method, but a way of delivering these same mechanisms through technology.
The Four Methods, and What Actually Makes Each One Binding
Most explanations of ADR stop at "it's faster and cheaper than court." That's true, but it skips the question that actually matters if you're trying to pick the right process: what happens if the other side simply refuses to go along with the outcome?
Each of these four methods answers that question differently under Indian law.
Negotiation
Negotiation is the simplest of the four. The two sides talk, either directly or through their lawyers, and try to agree on terms without anyone else in the room. There's no separate law for negotiation, because none is needed.
Once both sides agree and put it in writing, that agreement is enforceable the same way any ordinary contract is enforceable, under the Indian Contract Act, 1872.
That simplicity is also its weakness. If one side later backs out, there's no special enforcement machinery to fall back on, you'd generally have to file a fresh suit for breach of contract.
The one exception is if the settlement was recorded before a court or a Lok Adalat along the way, in which case it picks up the stronger enforcement power those forums carry.
Mediation
Mediation brings in a neutral person, the mediator, whose job is to help the two sides reach their own agreement. A mediator doesn't decide anything. They ask questions, point things out, and try to get both sides talking productively again. What they can't do is impose an outcome.
India got a dedicated law for mediation fairly recently: the Mediation Act, 2023, which received the President's assent on 14 September 2023 [3]. Two sections matter most here. Section 27 says that once a mediated settlement is signed by the parties and authenticated by the mediator, it "shall be final and binding on the parties... and enforceable... in accordance with the provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, in the same manner as if it were a judgment or decree passed by a court" [4].
Section 28 then limits how that settlement can be challenged, only for fraud, corruption, impersonation, or if the dispute genuinely wasn't the kind of matter mediation should have handled [4].
Parliament kept that list short on purpose, so mediation doesn't turn into just another round of litigation with extra paperwork.
There's a related rule worth knowing if you run a business. The Commercial Courts Act, 2015 was amended in 2018 to add Section 12A, which says a commercial suit that isn't seeking urgent interim relief can't even be filed unless the plaintiff has already tried pre-institution mediation [5].
For a while, people argued about whether this was a real requirement or just a suggestion. The Supreme Court settled that on 17 August 2022, in Patil Automation Pvt. Ltd. v. Rakheja Engineers Pvt. Ltd., ruling that Section 12A is mandatory from 20 August 2022 onward, and that any suit filed without attempting mediation first gets its plaint rejected under Order VII Rule 11 of the Code of Civil Procedure [6].
In other words, if you're a business planning to sue over a commercial dispute in India today, mediation isn't optional. It's the first step.
The body meant to regulate mediators and mediation institutions under the Act, the Mediation Council of India, has only just come into existence. A notification dated 27 August 2026 formally constituted the Council under Section 31 of the Act, more than three years after the Act itself was passed [7].
Conciliation
Conciliation looks a lot like mediation, and even lawyers use the two words loosely, but there's a real difference. A conciliator is allowed to actively suggest settlement terms. A mediator generally isn't, they can only help the two sides get there themselves.
Conciliation in India sits in Part III of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, Sections 61 to 81. When the two sides reach a settlement, Section 73 says it has to be written down and signed, and Section 74 then gives it "the same status and effect as if it is an arbitral award on agreed terms" [8].
How far a conciliator can push this was tested in a case that, oddly enough, started as a fight between two brothers over a flat in Mumbai. In Haresh Dayaram Thakur v. State of Maharashtra, decided on 5 May 2000, the Supreme Court held that a settlement only gets this elevated status once it's actually signed by both parties, a conciliator can't just draft something on their own and call it final [9]. Once it is properly signed, though, it's enforced exactly like an arbitration award.
Arbitration
Arbitration is different from the first two because the neutral person doesn't just guide the conversation, they decide the outcome. An arbitrator, or a panel of them (always an odd number, under Section 10 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996), hears both sides and issues a binding award, much like a judge would issue a judgment.
Section 36 of the same Act handles enforcement. Once the time limit to challenge an award under Section 34 has passed, or a challenge has been made and rejected, the award "shall be enforced in accordance with the provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908... in the same manner as if it were a decree of the court" [10].
Lok Adalat
The Lok Adalat doesn't have a real equivalent anywhere else in the world, because it's a purely Indian invention, created under the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987. It usually starts out as a conciliation process.
If the two sides settle, the Lok Adalat records it as an award. If they don't, the case just goes back to the regular court system (the one exception is a Permanent Lok Adalat, which handles public utility disputes and can decide a case on its own even if no settlement is reached).
What makes the Lok Adalat worth a section of its own is Section 21 of the Act: "Every award made by a Lok Adalat shall be final and binding on all the parties to the dispute, and no appeal shall lie to any court against the award" [11].
Not "hard to appeal", no appeal at all, except through a very narrow writ petition on constitutional grounds. It's arguably the single most final outcome anywhere in Indian dispute resolution, and it's designed to work alongside the other four methods, not compete with them.
What Makes Each Outcome Binding
| Mechanism | What makes it binding | How it can be challenged |
|---|---|---|
| Negotiation | Ordinary contract law | A fresh suit for breach of contract |
| Mediation | Section 27, Mediation Act, 2023, enforced as a court decree | Only fraud, corruption, impersonation, or an unfit subject matter (Section 28) |
| Conciliation | Section 74, Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, treated as an arbitral award | Very limited; treated as an award on agreed terms |
| Arbitration | Section 36, Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, enforced as a court decree | Only the narrow grounds under Section 34 |
| Lok Adalat | Section 21, Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987, deemed a civil court decree | No appeal lies |
Look across all four laws and the pattern is obvious. Each one takes something two people agreed to privately and gives it the same enforcement power as a court judgment, without making anyone go through a trial to earn it.
Choosing the Right Mechanism, and What to Actually Do Next
Knowing that these mechanisms exist is one thing. Knowing which one fits your alternative dispute is another, roughly how long it will take, and where to actually go.
A rough decision framework
If you and the other side are still willing to talk directly, and the relationship matters more than winning the point, negotiation is the place to start. If you'd like a neutral person in the room to help the conversation along without deciding anything, move to mediation instead.
If you want the neutral to take a more active role, someone willing to float settlement ideas rather than just facilitate, conciliation is the better fit. If the two of you fundamentally cannot agree and you need a final, binding decision, arbitration is built for exactly that.
And if your dispute is a straightforward matter like a cheque bounce case, a small money claim, or a matrimonial dispute where both sides might genuinely be open to compromise, it's worth asking about a Lok Adalat before assuming a full trial is the only option.
If your contract already has an arbitration or mediation clause, that clause generally governs your first move, regardless of what you'd otherwise prefer, check it before doing anything else.
And if you're a business facing a commercial dispute and you're not seeking urgent interim relief, remember that pre-institution mediation under Section 12A of the Commercial Courts Act, 2015 isn't optional. Courts will reject a plaint filed without it.
How long each one actually takes
This is usually the first question anyone facing a dispute asks, and the honest answer depends heavily on the specifics. But Indian law puts real, enforceable ceilings on some of these processes, which is worth knowing.
Litigation carries no fixed timeline at all, and the pendency numbers reflect that, cases in District Courts across 21 States and Union Territories were already pending five years or more on average, according to the India Justice Report, 2019 [15].
Arbitration has a statutory outer limit: under Section 29A of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, a domestic arbitral award must be made within twelve months of the completion of pleadings, extendable by six months if both sides agree, and only extendable further by a court order after that [16].
Mediation moves faster still, under Section 18 of the Mediation Act, 2023, the process must be completed within 120 days of the first appearance before the mediator, extendable by another 60 days by mutual consent [17].
A Lok Adalat can resolve a matter in a single sitting; NALSA organises National Lok Adalats four times a year across the country specifically to dispose of pending and pre-litigation cases in bulk, on a single day [18].
Where to actually go
Negotiation needs no filing and no institution, you can start today, directly or through your lawyer, and simply record the outcome in writing once you reach one.
For mediation, check first whether your contract names a mediation service provider. If it doesn't, you can approach a private mediation centre, a court-annexed mediation centre if your matter is already in litigation, or an ODR platform. If your dispute is a pre-suit commercial matter falling under Section 12A, mediation is conducted through the authority notified for that purpose under the Legal Services Authorities Act. Conciliation typically runs through a similar route — an institution, or a private conciliator willing to take the more active role the process calls for.
For arbitration, start with your contract. A valid arbitration clause will usually specify the number of arbitrators, how they're appointed, and often the institution or rules that apply. If the other side won't cooperate with appointing an arbitrator, Section 11 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 lets you approach the High Court, or the Supreme Court for international commercial arbitration, to have one appointed instead.
For a Lok Adalat, you don't need a case already filed anywhere. You can approach your nearest District or State Legal Services Authority directly, whether your matter is pending in court or hasn't been filed at all, and ask to have it listed for the next scheduled Lok Adalat [18].
Building it into a contract before a dispute exists
The cheapest way to use any of this is to plan for it before you need it. An arbitration clause has to be in writing to be valid. Section 7 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 accepts a signed document, an exchange of letters or electronic communication, or even an exchange of claim and defence where one side asserts the clause exists and the other doesn't deny it [19].
Beyond simply including a clause, it's worth getting a few details right at the drafting stage: the number of arbitrators must be odd, the appointment process should give both sides a genuinely equal say rather than letting one party control the panel, and the clause should specify the seat and, if relevant, the institution or rules that will govern the process.
Getting this right when the contract is signed avoids a second dispute, about the clause itself, layered on top of the one you actually came to resolve.
Where Online Dispute Resolution Actually Fits
Here's a mistake people make constantly, including in professional writing on this subject: treating ODR as a fifth method that sits next to negotiation, mediation, conciliation, and arbitration. It isn't. ODR is a layer on top of all four, not a new one of its own.
NITI Aayog's Expert Committee on ODR, chaired by Justice (Retd.) A.K. Sikri, made this distinction clearly in its October 2021 report: "Online Dispute Resolution in simple terms is the use of technology to resolve disputes outside of the public court system" [12].
The Committee was also clear that ODR isn't the same as "e-ADR", simply scheduling a hearing over email doesn't count. What actually qualifies as ODR is technology doing real work in the resolution process itself: a video hearing, a structured online negotiation tool, or an arbitration conducted entirely through documents filed on a platform [13].
Taken further, the report describes ODR as capable of acting as a "fourth party" in the process, not replacing the arbitrator, mediator, or conciliator, but supporting them with tools like automated resolution and structured negotiation [14].
The same report is honest about where ODR still falls short. It points to real problems: uneven digital literacy, patchy access to devices and internet connectivity, and a shortage of neutrals actually trained to run a dispute resolution process online rather than on paper.
It also points to a simple trust problem, a lot of people still don't feel that a process without a courtroom, a judge, and a gavel can really be taken seriously. These are not small issues, and they are a real part of why ODR adoption in India has been gradual rather than immediate.
The scale of the underlying problem makes clear why this matters. According to the India Justice Report, 2019, cited in the NITI Aayog report, cases in District Courts across 21 States and Union Territories were already pending five years or more on average [15]. ODR can't fix the substance of a dispute, it can't turn a weak case into a strong one.
What it removes is the friction around getting to a resolution in the first place: the travel, the paperwork, the endless back-and-forth just to fix a date everyone can agree on. ADR gives you a faster road than the courts. ODR makes sure you can actually get onto that road without a lawyer having to hold your hand the whole way.
Sama's Perspective
Running an ODR platform at scale has taught us something that's a little unglamorous to admit: most of the friction in Indian dispute resolution has never really been about the law. It's been operational.
People don't skip mediation because they've thought it through and decided they'd rather sit in a courtroom for years. They skip it because finding a good mediator, getting a session scheduled, and getting both sides into the same room, physical or virtual, used to take longer than most disputes were actually worth.
That's the specific problem we set out to fix. To date, over 2 crore disputes have been filed on Sama, more than 34 lakh of them resolved, with an average time of 45 days from filing to conclusion.
We don't think any one of these four methods is better than the others in some general sense, and we suspect most litigators, mediators, and arbitrators would agree with that, whatever their own specialty happens to be.
A wage dispute between two people who still basically trust each other doesn't need an arbitrator standing over it. It needs a structured conversation, which is why Online Negotiation exists as its own track on our platform rather than being lumped in with something heavier. A landlord and tenant who both want to keep the relationship intact are usually better served by Online Mediation than by a process built to produce a clear winner and loser. And a commercial dispute where someone actually needs a final, enforceable decision, not a compromise, is exactly what Online Arbitration is for.
What stays the same across all three, case after case, is what we call the Sama Standard: simple filing that doesn't require a law degree to understand, both sides genuinely heard rather than just formally notified, timelines that are clear from day one, neutrals who know what they're doing, and fairness applied the same way every time.
That standard has held up under real scrutiny, too, one of our arbitral awards has been tested and upheld before the Saket Court in New Delhi. It's also part of why organisations like ICICI Bank and Bajaj Markets, and public institutions like the Maharashtra State Legal Services Authority, use Sama as a working part of how they resolve disputes, not as a side experiment they're still not sure about.
If there's one thing worth taking away from all of this, it's that ADR India was never meant to be one path. It's four or five different tools, each backed by real Indian law, each suited to a different kind of dispute. The job, for the law and for us, is getting people to the right one quickly, instead of leaving them to guess.
Suljhao, magar pyaar se.
Endnotes
[1] National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) data on case pendency as of 31 December 2025, tabled by the Union Ministry of Law and Justice in the Lok Sabha. "Over 4.76 crore court cases pending across India: Govt informs Parliament," February 2026 — https://www.prokerala.com/news/articles/a1728996.html
[2] NITI Aayog, Designing the Future of Dispute Resolution: The ODR Policy Plan for India (October 2021), Glossary, definition of "ADR" — https://www.niti.gov.in/sites/default/files/2023-03/Designing-The-Future-of-Dispute-Resolution-The-ODR-Policy-Plan-for-India.pdf
[3] Mediation Act, 2023 (Act No. 32 of 2023), assented to by the President on 14 September 2023 — https://upload.indiacode.nic.in/view-casepdf?type=act&id=AC_CEN_3_46_00011_A2023-32_1697800640677
[4] Sections 27 and 28, Mediation Act, 2023 — https://ibclaw.in/section-27-of-mediation-act-2023-enforcement-of-mediated-settlement-agreement/; see also "The Mediation Act, 2023: India Paves The Way For A New Mediation Law – Part II," Kluwer Mediation Blog — https://legalblogs.wolterskluwer.com/mediation-blog/the-mediation-act-2023-india-paves-the-way-for-a-new-mediation-law-part-ii/
[5] Section 12A, Commercial Courts Act, 2015 (inserted by the 2018 amendment) — https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=16b68408-0096-4193-a2cf-b9dd42983b0b
[6] Patil Automation Pvt. Ltd. and Ors. v. Rakheja Engineers Pvt. Ltd., judgment dated 17 August 2022, (2022) 10 SCC 1 — https://indiankanoon.org/doc/164693074/; https://www.livelaw.in/pdf_upload/678-patil-automationpvt-ltd-v-rakheja-engineers-private-ltd-17-aug-2022-431042.pdf
[7] Notification constituting the Mediation Council of India under Section 31(1) of the Mediation Act, 2023, Department of Legal Affairs, dated 27 August 2026 — https://blog.primelegal.in/mediation-council-of-india-established-section-31/; also independently reported by Bar & Bench — https://www.barandbench.com/news/central-government-notifies-establishment-of-mediation-council-of-india and LiveLaw — https://www.livelaw.in/news-updates/centre-notifies-establishment-of-mediation-council-of-india-having-head-office-at-delhi-547657
[8] Sections 73 and 74, Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (Part III) — https://ibclaw.in/section-74-status-and-effect-of-settlement-agreement/
[9] Haresh Dayaram Thakur v. State of Maharashtra and Ors., Civil Appeal No. 3247 of 2000, judgment dated 5 May 2000, (2000) 6 SCC 179 / AIR 2000 SC 2281 — https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1600086/
[10] Section 36, Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, as quoted in Central Organisation for Railway Electrification v. ECI-SPIC-SMO-MCML (JV), 2024 INSC 857 — https://api.sci.gov.in/supremecourt/2019/28531/28531_2019_1_1502_57055_Judgement_08-Nov-2024.pdf
[11] Section 21, Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 — https://www.indiacode.nic.in/bitstream/123456789/19023/1/legal_service_authorities_act,_1987.pdf
[12] NITI Aayog, Designing the Future of Dispute Resolution: The ODR Policy Plan for India (October 2021), Chapter I, Section B ("Understanding ODR").
[13] Ibid. — the Committee's discussion of the threshold distinguishing genuine ODR from technology-assisted scheduling.
[14] Ibid. — the discussion of ODR functioning as a "fourth party" through algorithmic assistance tools, and the report's discussion of structural and behavioural challenges facing ODR adoption in India.
[15] Ibid. — citing the India Justice Report, 2019, on pendency in District Courts.
[16] Section 29A, Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, as substituted by the Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) Act, 2019 — https://ibclaw.in/section-29a-time-limit-for-arbitral-award/
[17] Section 18, Mediation Act, 2023 — https://www.taxtmi.com/acts?id=52453; see also "Unveiling Key Aspects of the Mediation Act 2023," Karanjawala & Co. — https://karanjawala.in/unveiling-key-aspects-of-the-mediation-act-2023/
[18] National Legal Services Authority, "Lok Adalats" — https://nalsa.gov.in/lok-adalats/; on the quarterly National Lok Adalat schedule, see Himachal Pradesh State Legal Services Authority — https://himachalpradesh.nalsa.gov.in/lok-adalat/
[19] Section 7, Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 — https://ibclaw.in/section-7-arbitration-agreement/
