Date:30/08/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/08/30/stories/2006083008680500.htm

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Kalam to visit court museum on September 4

Special Correspondent

He will also visit Mediation and Conciliation Centre

CHENNAI: After 44 years, the Madras High Court is all decked up to host a President.

President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam is visiting the court on September 4, almost 44 years after Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan visited it in 1962. He is scheduled to visit the High Court Museum and the one-year-old Tamil Nadu Mediation and Conciliation Centre, both established by Justice Markandey Katju, Judge, Supreme Court of India, when he was Chief Justice of the Madras High Court.

A formal announcement on the President's engagement was made by Chief Justice A.P. Shah.

The organising secretary of the Centre and senior advocate, Sriram Panchu, said the Tamil Nadu Mediation Centre had helped the High Court in Delhi train its mediators, and was doing the same for Calcutta. An Association of Indian Mediators was being created.

Mediation training had been given at the district courts of Coimbatore, Tiruchi, Thanjavur, Perambalur and Karur and the City Civil Court in Chennai. Training for Nagapattinam, Cuddalore, Chengalapttu, Ramanathapuram, Salem, Namakkal and Madurai districts would take place soon. "By the end of 2006, the centre will have around 300 mediators," he said.

Mr. Panchu said the process was different from the formal adversarial one employed in courts.

"The mediator does not decide their case, but facilitates such agreement; the decision-making power is retained by the parties. The process is voluntary, and any party can terminate it without having to give any reason."