Chandigarh, Nov 4 (IANS) The Punjab and Haryana High Court Tuesday said 20 mediation and counselling centres would be opened in the two states Saturday with the aim of resolving disputes faster.”Mediation and counselling centres have an immense scope in a big country like India. We started this concept in March and till date we have got an overwhelming response and got 12 percent success rate in solving the cases that we got. Now we will open 20 more such centres in Punjab and Haryana,” Justice K.S. Grewal of the Punjab and Haryana High Court told reporters here.

Two such centres are already operational in Chandigarh in the high court and district court premises.

“We are expected to solve around 2,800 cases with the opening of these centres and we certainly want to expand their arena in the coming days. We want to educate the people about these centres so that before filing the litigation in a court they should approach a mediator centre,” Justice Grewal said.

He said that every mediation centre would have two trained judicial officers and added that 21 lawyers have undergone 40 hours of training to work as mediators at these centres.

“We will train 39 more lawyers. Besides, any individual from society can approach us and undergo training and start working as a mediator. Each mediator will be given Rs.4,000 after the settlement of the case,” said Justice Grewal.

As far as the working of these mediation and counselling centres go, Justice Mahesh Grover of the high court said: “A mediator will work in four stages as firstly there will be the introduction session followed by an individual session, then a joint session and finally an agreement between the parties. The final orders will be passed by the court as suggested by the mediator.”