New Delhi, July 11 -- The law ministry has asked all government ministries to adhere to new guidelines for reducing litigation, following up on a directive it issued in April that could reduce pendency of cases, and also enhance the ease of doing business in India. Last week, the ministry dispatched urgent reminders to all government ministries last week, seeking details of compliance with its sweeping April directive designed to overhaul India's approach to litigation and reduce the state's overwhelming presence in the nation's overburdened courts. Titled "Directive for Efficient Litigation Management," the April document was a response to rising pendency (the Union government alone has around 700,000 cases pending before courts; states are likely to have at least as much; and state-owned companies will add to these numbers) and delays in the judicial process. Both also increase the cost of doing business in India. The situation is often exacerbated by ambiguous rules, procedural lapses, and a reflexive tendency to appeal unfavorable rulings, consuming billions in taxpayer funds over the past decade. Official data laid in the Parliament in April showed that the Union government spent over Rs.80 crore had been spent in 2024-25 in government litigation alone. Data from February showed Rs.400 crore was spent contesting cases in the last 10 years, with expenditure rising to Rs.66 crore in 2023-24 alone. Former Chief Justice of India NV Ramana once labelled government as the "biggest litigants" . Past efforts to address this, notably the proposed National Litigation Policy (NLP) in 2010, stalled despite extensive deliberations. While a revised NLP was submitted to the Committee of Secretaries (CoS) in 2017,this body ultimately recommended achieving the same end through simplified guidelines rather than a formal policy. However, signalling renewed commitment, Union law minister Arjun Ram Meghwal approved the NLP just last year, sending it to the cabinet for final approval, paving the way for the current, more forceful directive. The April directive imposes a near-total ban on government appeals in commercial disputes valued below Rs 10 crore, acknowledging that ministries often litigate reflexively. Any appeal involving sums under this threshold now requires explicit prior approval from a powerful committee chaired by the Expenditure Secretary. Appeals to the Supreme Court are severely restricted, permitted only in seven exceptional scenarios, such as matters threatening national security, causing grave social injustice, or exposing conflicting High Court rulings. Recognizing that poor internal legal capacity fuels much unnecessary litigation, the directive mandates the creation of specialized legal cells within every heavily litigated ministry or department within a strict 90-day deadline. These cells must be staffed with qualified personnel , directly addressing the admission that "most ministries/departments do not have a dedicated legal cell" and that "many officials... do not possess qualification in the field of Law," which leads to contempt proceedings and avoidable losses. Overseeing each ministry's entire litigation portfolio will be a Nodal Officer, typically a Joint Secretary possessing legal expertise. Technology is central to this transformation. The existing Legal Information Management and Briefing System (LIMBS) is slated for a major upgrade, evolving into a real-time litigation command centre. It will be integrated with e-Courts data and made mandatory for tracking all government cases, processing lawyer payments, and flagging problematic patterns such as chronic adjournments - Nodal Officers must be alerted instantly "if more than two continuous adjournments are sought." Furthermore, ministries are mandated to employ "technology, data analytics, and artificial intelligence" to perform root-cause analyses on significant case losses using a standardized template, aiming to identify and rectify systemic failures. A new Government Arbitration Portal, modelled on the National Judicial Data Grid, will assign unique IDs to all government arbitrations, bringing unprecedented transparency to the costs and progress of these disputes. The directive places a major emphasis on Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) to divert cases from the courts. Ministries must proactively identify disputes suitable for resolution under the 2023 Mediation Act. A key principle reinforced is that "arbitral awards do not serve as precedent for future cases," aiming to prevent endless cycles of similar litigation. To tackle decades-old backlogs, ministries are empowered to design amnesty schemes for "non-compliance... which does not affect public interest," particularly concerning outdated or repealed laws, actively pushing settlements through ADR mechanisms. Departments known for high litigation, like Pensions, are already taking proactive steps. V. Srinivas, Secretary of the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances and Department of Pensions and Pensioners' Welfare said that the directive is "futurustic in nature." Shruthi Naik, team lead of the JALDI (Justice Access and Lowering Delays in India) at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, citing a recent Rajya Sabha reply, said, "Streamlining government litigation is crucial not just for saving public money, but also for reducing the burden on courts, improving access to justice, and easing business."...