![Chief Justice Gita Mittal addressing Judges and Lawyers during 3-day training programme on mediation on Thursday. Chief Justice Gita Mittal addressing Judges and Lawyers during 3-day training programme on mediation on Thursday.](https://cdndailyexcelsior.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/bagsa-2.jpg)
Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, June 27: High Court in collaboration with Government today organised a three-day “Induction Training Programme on Mediation for Judges and Lawyers.”
The training programme that ends on Saturday is being conducted at J&K State Judicial Academy in which various judicial officers, resource persons, lawyers will throw light on Mediation and Conciliation.
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The judicial officers who spoke on the occasion said that mediation is emerging as an effective tool for conflict resolution and the need of the hour is to play an active role in making the mediation a success and a viable alternative.
The purpose of the training programme is to impart training to the judges and lawyers so that they can be excellent mediators that would ultimately help them in mediation and conflict resolution.
Chief Justice Gita Mittal spoke on various aspects of mediation and said that mediation is emerging as an effective and alternative tool for dispute resolution and said that single handed approach cannot be adopted for handling all kinds of disputes.
She said that mediation centres are not only for removing the burgeoning problem of judiciary but they also meet the inherent needs of society and community. Justice Mittal said that mediation centres enable the resolution of disputes in the manner the disputing parties desire and also said that Judicial officers have to evolve mechanism to determine the cases for referral to the mediation centres.
About the progress made in mediation in Jammu and Kashmir, Chief Justice expressed her resolve to bring the mediation centres of the State at par with the rest of the country to ensure access to justice for all.
Justice Mittal said that it is her endeavour to keep pace with other developments in rest of the country in terms of judicial sectors and expressed her satisfaction over the support from government and the work legal services authorities have been doing on this front.
About the training programme, Justice Mittal said they have undertaken these training sessions in Jammu and Kashmir and lawyers should encourage and support the process of mediation because their support is critical for the entire process.
Chief Justice Gita Mittal also exhorted upon the lawyers and judicial officers to treat this training session as a serious business and see this as an opportunity to enhance their knowledge level in terms of mediation and conciliation.
About the expansion of the mediation programme, she said that it is high time to introduce mediation habits at school level so that we will have a peace building habit at a younger age and train children as mediators. Chief Justice also lauded the efforts of the state judiciary in terms of the digitisation of the services like digital signatures back-ups, SMSs and other digital services.
Chairman, Mediation and Conciliation Centre, Justice Dhiraj Singh Thakur in his keynote address highlighted the need and importance of the subject and said that mediation centres will play a critical role in timely delivery of justice as courts have been inundated by the huge inflow of litigations.
In his welcome address, Justice Rashid Ali Dar gave an insight about the goals and objectives of the programme and said that mediation centres will only be successful by imparting training to referral judges. He said that mediation and conciliation is the hallmark of the civilisation and the establishment of mediation centres is an important aspect of conflict resolution.
Principal District and Sessions Judge Srinagar, Abdul Rashid Malik while speaking on the occasion gave an idea of mediation process and on the exhaustive role it could play in dispute resolution mechanism.
The other dignitaries present on the occasion included Advocate General D.C. Raina, Secretary Law Department Achal Sethi, Registrar General High Court Sanjay Dhar, Director J&K State Judicial Academy and other officers of the Registry.
Renowned Resource Persons, including senior advocate J P Sengh, senior advocate, Sudhanshu Batra, advocate Veena Ralli, Advocate Anuj Agarwal who are well known in the country as mediators and advocates conducted the working sessions on different aspects of mediation which will continue for the next two days.