Conciliation officers who have the duty of mediating and promoting settlement of industrial disputes. They are appointed by the appropriate Government by notification in the Official Gazette. Since, conciliation is a type of mediation it is important to be clear with what is regarded as mediation in the first place. Mediation, in simple words, is the process of attempting to harmonize the conflicting demands of two parties and bringing them to a point where they are willing to compromise. 

There are however, a couple of subtle differences between mediation and conciliation. In mediation the mediator has an active participation in the process, whereas in conciliation procedures conciliators are supposed to take on a more passive and indirect role. One more difference stands between conciliation and mediation is that conciliators function within the scope of statutory provisions while mediators are not subject to any statutory provisions. 

Functioning

Provision for appointment of conciliation officers or constitution of board of conciliation is under the Industrial Dispute Act. The appointment or such constitution can be tentative or permanent. The appointed officers or board can, by its discretion, take note of a dispute or it can be approached by both the parties or either of them.  There is no procedure that is mandatorily imposed upon such a conciliation officer or conciliation board. A report is to be submitted along with a copy of the settlement reached between the parties to the appointee authority.  

There have been time limits set for the conciliation process to come up with something constructive; 14 days for conciliation officers and 2 months if it's a board of conciliation. The agreement decided upon by them would be binding for a fixed period time agreed upon between the conflicting parties or for a period of six months until one of the parties revoke it.

If the conciliation process fails to reach a settlement that it was supposed to bring or it fails to harmonize conflicts by bringing an acceptable solution to the table, the officer or such board has to submit a detailed report citing reasons for the conciliation’s failure. Following the submission of such a report, the appropriate government authority will appoint a Court of Inquiry to investigate into the industrial dispute. It is expected of the Court to submit its report within six months after which the report would be published within a period of 30 days.

Powers

The conciliation officer holds the powers equivalent to that of a Civil Court. This gives him the authority to call the witness and the parties on oath. It is important to be noted here that even though there is a parallel drawn between the authority between the Civil Court and a Conciliation Officer, there is one major distinction that needs to be taken care of. While the Civil Courts have to constrict their judgment to the existing laws, a Conciliation Officer does not have to do so and just focus on the facts in the process of conciliation.