Chandigarh, May 17 (IANS) The Punjab and Haryana High Court has decided to open 10 mediation centres in 10 districts in each of the two states promote alternate dispute resolution mechanism for speedy delivery of justice. Punjab and Haryana High Court Chief Justice Vijender Jain said Saturday that the new concept of mediation centres was being introduced for early resolution of pending cases before various courts in the two states.

Jain was addressing a two-day north zone mediation and conciliation meet of judicial officials at Panchkula near here.

The meet was organised to acquaint judicial officers of Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh with rules and procedures of the newly introduced concept of mediation and conciliation.

Supreme Court of India judge S.B. Sinha stressed the need for trained mediators who would be neutral persons to settle disputes.

“We must formulate a code of conduct for mediators and there should also be a curriculum for the course. In case of mediation, the decision reached would be of both parties trying to get their dispute resolved and no one would thrust upon them any decision,” Justice Sinha said.

He cautioned that the mediator must be aware of the culture and customs and social issues of a community before handling any dispute for mediation.

Justice Jain said that in Haryana, the mediation centres would be set up in Panchkula, Kurukshetra, Karnal, Sonepat, Faridabad, Gurgaon, Rewari, Rohtak, Jind and Hissar.

In Punjab, these centres will be at Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Amritsar, Patiala, Bathinda, Ferozepore, Moga, Hoshiarpur, Sangrur and Mohali.

Two mediation centres are already functioning at Chandigarh.

Justice Jain said that in the mediation process, no one would be the loser. He said that judicial officers and lawyers would be given training to deal with mediation cases. He added that lawyers had an important role to play in mediation cases.

“In Britain, 70 percent of the cases are decided at the mediation level before these reach courts. One can mediate at pre-litigative stage,” Justice Jain said.

He admitted that despite recruiting 200 new judicial officers in Punjab and Haryana, vacancies of judicial officers in both states still existed.