Justice Nagarathna Champions Expansive Mediation and Centralized Child Tracing in Dual Supreme Court Focus

In a series of significant judicial pronouncements and public addresses, Supreme Court Justice BV Nagarathna has emerged as a forceful advocate for systemic reforms aimed at enhancing justice delivery in India. From championing a transformative expansion of mediation into unconventional sectors to proposing a centralized digital framework for tracing missing children, Justice Nagarathna’s recent interventions highlight a clear vision for a more responsive, efficient, and humane legal system.

Speaking at the 2nd National Mediation Conference, Justice Nagarathna delivered a comprehensive roadmap for integrating mediation far beyond its traditional confines of commercial disputes. Simultaneously, a bench she was part of recommended a crucial technological solution to the pressing national issue of child trafficking, underscoring a multifaceted approach to judicial problem-solving.

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A New Frontier for Mediation: From Juvenile Justice to Green Disputes

In a powerful keynote address, Justice Nagarathna called for a paradigm shift, urging the legal fraternity to view mediation "not as a secondary option, but as a legitimate and powerful first resort." Her speech meticulously detailed how the principles of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) could be tailored to address complex conflicts in areas as diverse as juvenile justice, environmental law, healthcare, and intellectual property.

Integrating Restorative Justice into the Juvenile System

A cornerstone of her address was a compelling argument for the regular employment of Victim-Offender Mediation (VOM) within the framework of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 (JJ Act). Justice Nagarathna asserted that the Act’s core philosophy—focusing on care, protection, and reintegration over punishment—finds its most effective expression through restorative tools like VOM.

She articulated a vision where VOM serves as a critical mechanism for healing and accountability. "To truly give effect to the principles of restorative justice in the proceedings of the Juvenile Justice Boards, tools such as victim-offender mediation (VOM) need to be more regularly employed," she stated. She elaborated on its unique value:

"In contrast to merely negotiating settlement between parties, VOM can be a safe space for fostering dialogue between victims. It is a duty of the criminal justice system to give space to victims to express the impact of the harm they have suffered, and the juvenile offender to understand the real-world consequences of their actions, take responsibility, and express remorse. This method achieves a goal that retributive punishment cannot achieve."

To operationalize this, Justice Nagarathna called for the development of a national curriculum for training and certifying VOM mediators. She stressed that such training must be "trauma-informed and must incorporate principles of child psychology and restorative justice facilitation," ensuring that professionals are equipped to handle the profound sensitivities of these cases.

Specialized "Green Mediators" for Environmental Conflicts

Addressing the growing urgency of environmental and climate disputes, Justice Nagarathna identified mediation as "uniquely positioned" to handle these multifaceted socio-ecological challenges. Citing its flexibility and focus on interest-based solutions, she argued that mediation can broker holistic agreements that litigation often cannot. For example, a settlement in a pollution dispute could encompass not just monetary compensation but also commitments to habitat restoration and the creation of joint monitoring committees.

To build this capacity, she proposed a concrete institutional step:

"The Mediation Council of India must consider establishing a specialized panel of accredited “green mediators”. These individuals would require a unique skill set, combining expertise in mediation techniques with a deep understanding of environmental law, climate science, public policy, and socio economic impact assessment."

By creating a dedicated roster of such experts, complex environmental cases could be handled by neutrals capable of navigating technical nuances and facilitating science-based negotiations, a model inspired by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's institutionalized use of conflict resolution.

Reforming Government Litigation and Empowering Patients

Justice Nagarathna also confronted the pervasive issue of protracted government litigation. She welcomed a Ministry of Finance memorandum encouraging ADR in public contracts but warned against the bureaucratic inertia that fuels endless appeals. "If a governmental-body keeps initiating another round of litigation only to exhaust judicial avenues where there exists no likelihood of success, our country's resources will continue to be improperly used and judicial time misallocated," she cautioned, calling for a fundamental transformation in this outlook.

In the healthcare domain, she highlighted the "structural imbalance" between patients and powerful healthcare institutions in medical negligence cases. To level the playing field, she recommended the formal integration of Patient Advocacy Groups into mediation processes, ensuring that patient voices are not marginalized.

Finally, she extolled mediation's virtues of confidentiality and creativity in intellectual property and corporate disputes, where it can preserve commercial value and relationships through solutions like licensing or co-existence agreements. For startups, she advocated that mediation clauses become standard in foundational legal documents, noting that a dispute resolved in weeks instead of years "could mean the difference between success and collapse.”

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A Coordinated Response to Child Trafficking: The Case for a National Portal

In a separate but equally impactful development, a Supreme Court bench comprising Justice Nagarathna and Justice R. Mahadevan addressed the systemic failures in tracing missing children. Hearing a public interest litigation filed by the NGO Guria Swayam Sevi Sansthan, the bench proposed a vital measure to combat organized child trafficking networks operating across state lines.

Recognizing that the "wide network of the offence" is a primary obstacle to recovery, the Court recommended that the Union Ministry of Home Affairs establish a common, dedicated portal for this purpose. The bench observed a critical gap in the current system:

"Presently there is a lack of coordination and a coordinated network amongst the police units who are in charge of tracking and recovering missing children... As a result, the recovery of the missing children... are not recovered in time and/or not at all recovered and the investigation is tardy."

The proposed portal would function as a centralized hub, supervised by the Home Ministry. A dedicated officer from each state and union territory would be responsible for registering complaints and disseminating real-time information, creating a cohesive network for all nodal officers. This coordinated effort, the bench noted, would be instrumental in strategizing and facilitating investigations that currently suffer from inter-state fragmentation.

The Court has tasked Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati with seeking instructions from the government on this recommendation, with the matter scheduled for a follow-up hearing on October 14. This judicial suggestion aims to build upon previous directives, including a 2023 order for the Union to collate district-wise data on missing children, signaling the Court's sustained focus on leveraging technology and inter-agency cooperation to protect the country's most vulnerable.

Together, these two initiatives—one a broad, visionary blueprint for dispute resolution and the other a targeted, practical solution to a specific criminal justice crisis—paint a picture of a judiciary actively seeking to modernize its processes and expand its problem-solving toolkit to meet the complex challenges of contemporary India.