Ex Curia International is pleased to announce that its feedback on the report ‘Designing the Future of Dispute Resolution: The ODR Policy Plan for India’ by the NITI Aayog, has been acknowledged by the ODR Committee Convenor, Mr. D.G. Sekhri. NITI Aayog is developing itself as a State-of-the-art Resource Centre, with the necessary resources, knowledge and skills, that will enable it to act with speed, promote research and innovation, provide strategic policy vision for the government, and deal with contingent issues.
The consultation was conducted between 28th October 2020 and 11th November 2020 wherein 44 participants contributed their opinion through Civis’ platform, to improve the report. The Committee included representatives from various Departments and Ministries of the Government of India, which could contribute towards mainstreaming ODR and in-turn benefit from it, including the Departments of Consumer Affairs, Legal Affairs, Justice and the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, among others. As a second step in its consultative drafting process, the Committee invited experts in the field of dispute resolution to participate in the consultation exercise through an online consultation mechanism and ECI provided its recommendations independently through this invitation.
To summarise, ECI recommended gaps in the expert committee’s report and some potential solutions and the way forward in this regard. A section on the lacunae in the law as regards electronic evidence was also included in the response. ECI formed a sub-committee for this purpose, with members from different divisions of the team working on different areas of the report.
The document containing the acknowledgement letters can be accessed here:
We at ECI would like to thank the NITI Aayog and Civis for giving us an opportunity to undertake this project. The acknowledgement received from the Chairman of the Committee makes us hopeful that our suggestions, as part of the student community who are striving to create ripples within the dispute resolution sphere, will form a valuable part of the consultative process in the formulation of a comprehensive ODR Policy framework for India.