Nagarathna on Saturday (September 26, 2026) called for greater reliance on alternative dispute resolution in family litigation, arguing that mediation and conciliation could deliver faster, less adversarial outcomes than prolonged court battles. Supreme Court judge Justice B.V.
Justice Nagarathna was delivering the inaugural address on ‘ADR (alternative dispute resolution) versus Adjudication in Family Disputes: Challenges and Way Forward’ at the Eastern Zone Regional Conference of the Committee for Family Court Matters, Supreme Court of India, in association with the Gauhati High Court, in Guwahati. Justice Nagarathna, who chairs the apex court’s Committee for Family Court Matters, noted that many years pass between filing pleadings and a final judgment. Justice Nagarathna underlined a series of proposals across five key areas. On child custody, the judge favoured embedding child psychologists directly in the mediation process, and adopting child-inclusive approaches that allow a trained professional to convey a child’s views to the parents, reducing reliance on adversarial custody battles. Shifting focus to the status of women, Justice Nagarathna highlighted the disproportionate costs of protracted litigation in terms of finances, enforceability and dignity, noting that confidential mediation can help secure practical outcomes such as the return of stridhan (woman’s property) and provision of children’s education.
Citing data from the Department of Justice, she said the country had 822 functioning family courts as of October 2024. Among the eastern States, Bihar topped the list with 70,365 pending cases, followed by Odisha (36,792), Jharkhand (15,376), Assam (7,399), and Tripura (4,010). On matrimonial disputes, Justice Nagarathna said pre-litigation mediation should be promoted under Section 5 of the Mediation Act, and conciliation should be scheduled at the first hearing of contested divorce and restitution petitions, before written statements were filed.
The Supreme Court judge told delegates that alternative dispute resolution was never intended to compete with the courts but to complement them, offering speed, privacy, and confidentiality that conventional litigation often cannot. By that point, “any semblance of subsisting familial bond” is often lost. On cases involving overlapping issues of domestic violence and elder welfare, she recommended “consolidated referral”, under which related proceedings arising from a single household could be directed to one mediator with unified judicial oversight, since “it is the family and not the cause of action, which requires resolution”.
