Mediation centre helps unite divorced couples

NEW DELHI - Sukhveer and Shobha Singh came to Delhi High Court in 2009 in a custody battle over their child after their decided to annul their nine-year-old marriage. A year later the couple is happily remarried, thanks to the court’s mediation.

Sukhveer and Shobha had married in 2000, but things started turning sour after Shobha’s family began interfering in their lives and created misunderstandings that began to overshadow their relationship.

The couple had two children, but their misunderstandings continued to grow and they decided to end the relationship. They got divorced in 2009, and Sukhveer came to the court seeking the custody rights of one of the children.

However, the court decided to send them to the mediation centre to resolve the custody battle.

“When the case came to me I realized that the couple still wanted to continue their relationship, and it was just due to misunderstanding that they were forced to take this extreme step,” said advocate Rekha Aggarwal, who was a mediator in their case.

After 20 sittings with the couple, Aggarwal realized that it was the girl’s family that had created the rift as they did not like the boy and forced Shobha to go in for divorce.

“It was very difficult for me to handle Shobha as I wanted the girl to realise that her parents are not doing good for her,” Aggarwal recalled to IANS.

“Finally, I was able to convince the couple and they got married again and are living happily with their two kids,” said Aggarwal, adding that getting the couple together was the most delightful moment of her career.

Like Aggarwal, hundreds of lawyers at the Delhi High Court Mediation Centre are working as mediators in different cases - ranging from matrimony to land disputes.

“We receive 80 cases in a day on an average related to matrimonial, cheque bounce, land disputes and the like. Our battery of lawyers sit with both the parties, listen to them and arrive at a conclusion that suits both parties,” said Sadhna Ramachandran, secretary of the Delhi High Court Mediation Centre.

Sixty percent of the cases relate to matrimonial disputes.

The mediation centre manages to bring both parties to an amicable solution in maximum number of cases.

“The basic idea behind the mediation is to open the way of communication that was blocked after differences crept in. So here we try to open the channel of communication between the parties and ask them to sit across the table and talk,” Ramachandran told IANS.

Mediation is a forum where disputes can be heard and addressed by the parties concerned with the help of a neutral third party. It saves money as the disputes are promptly settled.

(Kanu Sarda can be contacted at kanu.s@ians.in)