Efficacy of Alternative Dispute Resolution Mechanism with Respect to Matters Pertaining to Child Custody: An Overview

Abstract

India is a sovereign, socialist, secular and democratic republic country wherein the citizens are not governed by any single personal law. The citizens possess the freedom to practice and preach their own religious values and faith and to also abide by their own personal norms and traditions. Given such a rich and diverse population with different geographical attributes, it becomes difficult at times to resolve the disputes arising out of the private sphere i.e. within a family or between spouses especially when it relates to their child. It is observed that the decision-making process with respect to family laws including matters like divorce, maintenance, custody of children, etc. involves a plethora of selfadjudicatory mechanisms such as mediation, conciliation and settlement which aid and facilitate the aggrieved parties and the adjudicators to reach a desired result. Over the past few years, the application of the rules of ADR and their applicability to such situations has raised a series of questions
concerning the custody of children and their welfare. Based on the following approach, the research paper explores the nuances of the applicability of these alternate dispute resolution mechanisms in reallife cases related to child custody and analyses the various struggles faced by the parties while undergoing such forms of alternate dispute resolution mechanisms for resolving their disputes. The research paper proposes the outlook of humans as change agents instead of sufferers, and to that end examines the alternate dispute resolution mechanism in contrast to the Indian legal provisions especially in India for the necessity of observance of peaceful settlement of disputes in matrimonial cases.