Law Ministry takes big step to shed 'govt biggest litigant ' tag, but efforts to promote mediation yet to take off

New Delhi, Dec 29 (PTI) The Union Law Ministry took a crucial step this year to help the central government shed the tag of being the "biggest litigant", but at the same time, efforts towards promoting mediation, which can eventually help in reducing court pendency, have fallen short.

The year 2025 also saw the appointment of Gyanesh Kumar as the new Chief Election Commissioner under a new law, which has been dubbed by the opposition as "non-inclusive".

As part of the Modi government's agenda to clean up statute books of obsolete laws, the ministry brought a bill to repeal over 70 such Acts that had lost their relevance over the years. The bill received Parliament's nod in the Winter session.

While 65 of these laws were amendment Acts, which were brought to tweak existing laws, six were principal laws that had become outdated. At least two laws repealed were of the British era.

Since May 2014, the Modi government has been consistently repealing colonial-era, archaic and obsolete laws to declutter statute books.

With the latest tranche of repeals, so far 1,633 obsolete, redundant and colonial era laws have been sent to the chopping board.

Successive Union law ministers have maintained that obsolete laws are impediments in the normal life of common people and do not have relevance in the present time, nor deserve to remain in the statute books.

After one-and-a-half decade of back and forth on the drawing board, the law ministry finally junked the idea of bringing a national litigation policy to help the central government shed the tag of being the biggest litigant.

Instead, it issued directives to Union ministries, departments and PSUs on ways to cut down court cases.

The central government is a party in nearly seven lakh cases pending across courts, according to official data.

Seeking to shed the tag of being the biggest litigant, the Union government had been working on a comprehensive policy to reduce cases where it, its departments or PSUs are a party.

However, the thought prevailed that the government cannot have such a policy on curbing litigations as it can't stop people at large from filing cases.

"The term policy cannot be used if it is applicable only on the government, its ministries and departments and not on private litigations.

"Something which is not universally applicable cannot be termed as policy... curbing government litigation is a very inward-looking move," a top ministry functionary told PTI.

The official pointed out that the term directive has been used as it has a "sense of force", and words like guidelines were avoided as they are "generic" in nature. Another key reason for not bringing a policy was that it would have needed approval from the Union Cabinet.

Any tweaks in the future would also have required Cabinet approval.

The "Directive for the efficient and effective management of litigation by the Government of India", issued by the Department of Legal Affairs in the law ministry, was cleared by a committee of secretaries and will be reviewed annually for progress made and changes required.

According to the directive issued in April, the objective of the various decisions and actions is to promote public good and better governance.

"Sometimes their ineffective implementation may lead to the exclusion of intended beneficiaries or the unintended ones being benefited." In some cases, affected parties may perceive certain decisions as unfair and pursue legal recourse through litigation," it said, highlighting the importance of effective implementation of decisions by central ministries, departments and PSUs.

Minimising "unwarranted appeals" in courts and addressing "inconsistencies in notifications and orders" that lead to court cases are the key measures proposed by the ministry.

The law ministry had, in February, told the Rajya Sabha that the Centre is a party in nearly seven lakh cases pending across courts, with the finance ministry alone being one of the litigants in nearly two lakh cases.

Citing data available on the Legal Information Management & Briefing System (LIMBS), Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal had said, "There are about seven lakh cases pending where the Government of India is a party. Out of these, in about 1.9 lakh cases the Ministry of Finance is mentioned as a party".

While steps were taken to deal with rising cases in which the government is a party, the ministry could not set up the mediation council as mandated under a law passed two years ago.

The proposed council will devise the framework of institutionalisation of the conduct of mediation.

The Mediation Act, 2023, lays down the statutory framework for mediation to be adopted by parties to a dispute, especially institutional mediation.

As provided under the law, some provisions of the Act were notified in October 2023.

But there is no move forward to establish the Mediation Council of India to deal with the framework of institutionalisation of the conduct of mediation and lay down the manner for recognition of mediation service providers.

The Mediation Act, 2023, has been described as a pivotal legislative intervention towards providing a standalone law on mediation and enabling the growth of a culture of amicable out-of-court settlement and the outcome being party-driven. PTI NAB RT