On 27 August 2026, the Union Ministry of Law and Justice, Department of Legal Affairs, published a gazette notification doing something the Mediation Act, 2023 had authorised it to do since the law’s very first day in force: establish the Mediation Council of India, with its head office at Delhi. The catch is in that phrase “since the law’s very first day in force.” Chapter VIII of the Mediation Act — Sections 31 to 38, the entire chapter creating and empowering the Council — came into effect on 9 October 2023. The power to set up the Council existed for nearly three years before the government actually used it.

That gap matters beyond bureaucratic trivia. India’s Chief Justice, Surya Kant, spent part of a speech at the Indian Institute of Arbitration and Mediation’s silver jubilee event on 11 July 2026 warning about exactly this kind of gap in the country’s alternative dispute resolution (ADR) architecture. Speaking about the Arbitration Council of India — a sister institution created by the 2019 arbitration amendment and, six years on, still not constituted — the CJI said “this gap between announcement and implementation is precisely the credibility deficit we cannot legislate our way out of.” Six weeks later, the government closed one such gap for mediation, if only on paper. The Arbitration Council remains unbuilt.

What the 27 August Notification Actually Does

The notification is narrow and procedural, and it is worth being precise about what it does and does not accomplish. Issued under Section 31(1) of the Mediation Act, 2023 (Act No. 32 of 2023), it declares that a Council “for the purposes of the said Act, to be called as the Mediation Council of India,” shall exist, with its head office at Delhi. Under Section 31(4), the Council may later open additional offices elsewhere in India and abroad, in consultation with the Central Government.

What the notification does not do is equally important: it names no Chairperson, no Members, and no date on which the Council will actually begin functioning. As reporting from both LiveLaw and Bar & Bench has noted, the Council exists in law from 27 August 2026, but as an empty institutional shell — a corporate body with a Delhi address and no officers.

The Institution the Act Actually Designed

Section 32 of the Act sets out who is supposed to fill that shell. The Council is to comprise a Chairperson appointed by the Central Government — a person of “ability, integrity and standing” with knowledge of law, ADR, public affairs, or administration — alongside two full-time Members (one with expertise in mediation or ADR law, the other an academic or researcher in the field), two ex-officio Members (the Secretary, Department of Legal Affairs, and the Secretary, Department of Expenditure, or their nominees), a Member-Secretary who is also ex-officio, and one part-time Member representing a recognised chamber of commerce and industry. Non-ex-officio Members serve four-year terms, renewable, with an upper age limit of 70 for the Chairperson and 67 for other Members.

That composition has drawn comparison to the criticism levelled at the still-missing Arbitration Council, where retired Delhi High Court judge Badar Durrez Ahmed has questioned whether a government-dominated regulator can credibly grade institutions and accredit professionals when the government itself is India’s largest litigant. The Mediation Council’s own structure — a Centre-appointed Chairperson, two government secretaries in the room, and only one seat reserved for the private mediation sector — sits closer to the arbitration model than to an independent professional regulator.

What the Council Is Actually For

Section 38 of the Act spells out the Council’s job once it is staffed: registering mediators, recognising and grading mediation service providers and institutes, maintaining an electronic depository of mediated settlement agreements executed in India, and generally promoting domestic and international mediation through service providers, law firms, universities, and other stakeholders. In short, it is meant to be mediation’s version of the Bar Council — the body that decides who counts as a qualified mediator and which institutions can be trusted to run mediations, matters currently governed by a patchwork of ad hoc empanelment rules under the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987, and individual High Court mediation centre rules.

Voluntary Mediation, Untouched by the Delay

It is worth being clear about what has not been waiting on the Council. Section 5 of the Act makes pre-litigation mediation for ordinary civil and commercial disputes voluntary and consent-based — a deliberate softening from an earlier, more mandatory draft. The one carve-out is commercial disputes of “Specified Value,” which continue to go through compulsory pre-institution mediation under Section 12A of the Commercial Courts Act, 2015, a regime that has operated independently of the Mediation Council since well before this week’s notification. Similarly, Section 20 registration of mediated settlement agreements — with an Authority constituted under the Legal Services Authorities Act — and the enforceability of such agreements as a civil decree under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, have likewise not depended on the Council existing. Mediation as a dispute-resolution tool has continued in India for three years without the body meant to professionalise it; what has been missing is the accreditation and quality-control layer on top.

A Pattern Across India’s ADR Institutions

The timing invites a comparison the government has not itself drawn. In the same July 2026 speech, CJI Surya Kant listed three priorities for advancing mediation in India: professionalising mediator accreditation, encouraging Indian companies to write mediation clauses into their contracts, and ratifying the Singapore Convention on Mediation — which India signed on 7 August 2019 as one of the first movers, but has still not ratified. The Mediation Council notification addresses the first of those three, at least structurally. The second and third remain untouched by this week’s development, and India’s arbitration counterpart body — created by statute in 2019, with functions the government’s own 2024 draft amendment bill continues to assign to it regardless of its non-existence — remains, in the CJI’s own words from that same address, part of “the credibility deficit we cannot legislate our way out of.”

Practical Implications

For now, the practical effect of the 27 August notification on litigants, mediators, and companies is close to zero. Existing mediation practice — under Section 12A of the Commercial Courts Act, under court-annexed mediation centres, under Lok Adalats, and under privately arranged institutional mediation — continues exactly as before. There is no functioning body yet to register with, no accreditation to seek, and no grading of institutions to consult. What has changed is that the clock on operationalisation has finally started: the Central Government must now appoint a Chairperson and Members before the Council can discharge any of its Section 38 functions, and mediators, law firms, and dispute-resolution institutes that have been operating in the interim should watch for the rules and timelines that follow this appointment, since registration and recognition requirements — once notified — are likely to apply to mediation service providers already active in the market. For legal professionals advising on dispute-resolution clauses, the sensible course is to keep drafting mediation and multi-tier dispute-resolution clauses as before, while tracking whether the Council, once staffed, imposes new registration or accreditation prerequisites that affect existing panels of empanelled mediators.

Frequently Asked Questions

What did the government actually notify on 27 August 2026?

It notified the establishment of the Mediation Council of India under Section 31(1) of the Mediation Act, 2023, fixing its head office at Delhi. It did not appoint a Chairperson or Members, and it did not set a date for the Council to begin functioning.

Why did this take almost three years after the Mediation Act was passed?

Chapter VIII of the Act, including Section 31 empowering the government to establish the Council, came into force on 9 October 2023. The government held that power for nearly three years before exercising it on 27 August 2026; none of the sources reviewed for this article record an official explanation for the delay.

Does the Mediation Council of India have a Chairperson yet?

No. As of this notification, no appointments to the Council — Chairperson, Members, or the part-time industry representative — have been announced.

Is mediation mandatory in India now that the Council exists?

No, for most civil and commercial disputes, pre-litigation mediation remains voluntary under Section 5 of the Mediation Act, 2023. The exception is commercial disputes of Specified Value, which are already subject to compulsory pre-institution mediation under Section 12A of the Commercial Courts Act, 2015 — a requirement that predates and does not depend on the Mediation Council.

What will the Council do once it is functioning?

Under Section 38 of the Act, it is meant to register mediators, recognise and grade mediation service providers and institutes, maintain an electronic depository of mediated settlement agreements, and promote domestic and international mediation.

How does this compare to the Arbitration Council of India?

The Arbitration Council of India was created by a 2019 amendment to the Arbitration and Conciliation Act to accredit arbitrators and grade arbitral institutions, but remains unconstituted six years later — a gap Chief Justice Surya Kant publicly criticised in July 2026. The Mediation Council’s establishment notification is a step the Arbitration Council has not yet had, though the Mediation Council also still lacks appointed members.

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