K. KANNAN

Senior Fellow – India

K. Kannan is a former justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court and currently serves as a Chairman of the Railway Claims Tribunal (RCT) at the Principal Bench at New Delhi, India.

About K. Kannan

K. Kannan is a former justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court and currently serves as a Chairman of the Railway Claims Tribunal (RCT) at the Principal Bench at New Delhi, India. Justice Kannan applies his widespread knowledge on diverse subjects of law for application to different types of disputes.

Litigation Practice

Justice Kannan’s litigation practice focused on the civil, constitution and service laws of the country. He served as a designated senior counsel at the Madras High Court before his elevation to the bench. As a senior standing counsel for the federal government, he was assigned to assist the court on actions of the State, particularly regarding matters of service in the state departments and functionaries before the high court and the central administrative tribunals. During his tenure as a lawyer, he was also editor of the Madras Law Journal, the first Indian law journal of the country.

Mediation Practice

Justice Kannan established a mediation center under the aegis of the Tamil Nadu Legal Services Authority in Kunijipadi near Pondicherry in 1981, among the first few mediation centers in the country. He was among the first team of mediators in the country in Chennai, where court-annexed mediation initially took root in 2005.

As a Chairman of the Railway Claims Tribunal in New Delhi, he serves as a neutral, on a pro bono basis, to resolve complex commercial cases assigned to him by the Supreme Court.

ADR Achievements and Training

As the Chair of the RCT, with 22 Benches in 19 locations across the country, Justice Kannan promotes a settlement culture in the Railway administration by proactively entertaining claims from victims of train accidents through officers of the RCT, and the rendering of rapid compensation awards. He has structured a system to assist the railway administration in identifying genuine claims and offering settlements without an adjudicatory process.
Justice Kannan attended mediation courses at the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School and at the Center for Negotiation and Dispute Resolution, University of California Hastings College of Law in 2017.
Justice Kannan was awarded a Weinstein JAMS International Fellowship in 2017.
He participated in a 40-hour mediation training for commercial mediators conducted by Bruce Edwards and Laila Ollapally at the Center of Advanced Mediation Practice, Bangalore in 2017.
He participated in a mediation training (40 hours) in Chennai in 2005.

ADR Teaching and Mentoring

During his practice as an attorney, Justice Kannan promoted the mediation movement within the state by providing training to lawyers and judges in the State of Tamil Nadu, practicing in various bar associations within the State.
As a judge of the Punjab & Haryana High Court, he was a member of the Mediation Committee of the High Court that devised programs for training lawyers and members of the subordinate judiciary.
Justice Kannan assisted in the development of mediation course content at the law schools affiliated with the Panjab University and Rajiv Gandhi National Law University in Patiala

Publications and Education

Publications

Author of several books on law, including: Medicine and Law (OUP, 2014) and 2 titles of Halsbury’s Laws of India series, viz., Wills & Succession (LexisNexis 2005, 2013) and Landlord & Tenant (LexisNexis 2006, 2014), Accidents and Compensation Laws (Wadhwa Butterworths, 2005).

Editor of several books of renowned authors, including: the last 3 editions of Modi’s Medical Jurisprudence and Toxicology (LexisNexis 2011,2015 and 2018), Paruck’s Succession Act (LexisNexis 2001, 2011 and 2014), Mulla’s Registration Act, (LexisNexis 2012, 2016) Mulla’s Sale of Goods Act and Indian Partnership Act (LexisNexis 2012) and MLJ’s Motor Vehicles Act (Wadhwa Butterworths, 2008).

Editor/author of Srinivasan & Kannan’s Principles of Insurance Law (LexisNexis 2017).

Educational Qualifications

Graduate in Economics from Loyola College at Chennai
Graduate in Law from the Law College at Pondicherry, then under Madras University, in 1977