The Government of India will launch its maiden Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) portal on Saturday, April 21st, 2018. The new portal will be launched in the presence of the Vice President of India, Venkaiah Naidu, and the Minister of Law & Justice, Ravi Shankar Prasad, along with a core team of dignitaries from the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL).

The new dispute redressal mechanism uses software and technology to digitalise the resolution of legal disputes between parties. It is expected to expedite Arbitration, Mediation, and Conciliation in the legal system and eliminate the need for paperwork. The launch complements the Central government’s initiative to digitalise India’s public sector.

The new portal will carry out Arbitration, Mediation, and Conciliation, or a combination of the three, in the public sector, including Highways, for the expeditious settlement of cases. Akhilesh Srivastava, Chief General Manager (CGM) of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and member of a high-power central committee for the development of a common public ODR system, designed and developed the dispute redressal technology.

The launch of the central portal for the Judiciary was made possible after the native online technology satisfied all the standards of the UNCITRAL Model Law during a practical demonstration by the NHAI at the UN.

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There are two methods that will be employed by the new ODR portal, which are the Consensual method and the adjudicative method. The Consensual method further involves several procedures, some of which are:
Automated Negotiation.

This is a method where technology takes over negotiation, and is designed to determine economic settlements for claims in which liability is not challenged. There are two forms of automated negotiation – Double Blind Bidding and Visual Blind Bidding.

The first method is for singular monetary issues between two parties, and the second one is for resolving any number issues between any number of parties.
This method has been proven useful for resolving “brick and mortar” disputes that arise in businesses, insurance companies, and municipalities.
Assisted Negotiation.

In this method, the technology only aides the negotiation process between the litigants, instead of taking over entirely. Assisted negotiation uses third party or software to improve parties' communications. The procedure aims at keeping the negotiations informal, simple, and user-friendly.

Other procedures under this method are Expedient Non-Adjudicative Online Resolution and crowd justice.

The adjudicative method involves procedures such as online arbitration, Uniform Domain Names Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), and others.

According to CGM Akhilesh Srivastava, [b]Online Dispute Resolution[/b] would open up multiple avenues in employment for software engineering and law graduates. The portal would also transform India into a preferred outsourcing destination for dispute resolutions.