lok adalat visit report

Lok Adalat: Alternative Dispute Resolution Mechanism In India

Types of cases at lok adalat: the types of cases dealt with generally are:.

• Mutation of land cases.
• Compoundable criminal offences.
• Family disputes.
• Encroachment on forest lands.
• Land acquisition disputes.
• Motor accident claim, and
• Cases which are not sub-judice.
• Social goals like ending quarrels
• Restoring family peace
• Providing succor for destitute.

Organization of Lok Adalat (Sec. 18)

•  The State authority or district authority or the High Court legal services committee or as the case may be; Tehsil legal services committee may organize Lok Adalat at such intervals and places and for exercising such jurisdiction and for such areas as it thinks fit. 2. Every Lok-Adalat organized for an area shall consist of such number of; a) Serving or retired on judicial officer, and b) Other person of the area as may be specified by the state authority or the district authority or the High Court legal services committee or as the case may be, the Tehsil legal services committee organizing such Lok Adalats.
• The experience and qualifications of persons. Referred to in clause (b) of sub sec. (2) for Lok Adalats shall be such as may be prescribed by the government in consultation with the chief justice of the High Court.
• Lok Adalats shall have jurisdiction to determine and to arrive at a compromise or settlement between the parties to a dispute in respect of; a) Any case pending before the court b) Any matter which is falling within the jurisdiction of and is not brought before any court for which the Lok Adalat is organized. Provided that the Lok Adalat shall have no jurisdiction in respect of any matter or case relating to an offence not compoundable under any law.

Cognizance of cases by Lok-Adalat (Sec. 19)

• Wherein any case referred in clause (1) of sub sec. (4) of sec. 18 i) (a) The parties thereof agree; or (b) One of the parties there of makes an application to the court of referring the case to the Lok Adalat for settlement and if such court prime facie satisfy that there are chances of such settlement, or ii) That the court is satisfied that the matter is an appropriate one to take cognizance of by the Lok Adalat; the court shall refer the case to the Lok Adalat. Provided that no case shall be referred to the Lok-Adalat under sub-clause (b) clause;
• by such court after giving a reasonable opportunity of being heard to the parties.
• Not with standing anything contained in any other law for the time being in force the authority or committee organizing the Lok Adalat under sub sec. (1) of sec. 18 may on the receipt of application from any of the parties to any matter referred to in clause (h) of sub sec. (4) of sec. 18, that such matter needs to be determined by a Lok Adalat, for determination. Provided that no matter shall be referred to Lok-Adalat except after giving a reasonable opportunity of being heard to the other party.
• When any case is referred to a Lok Adalat under sub sec. (1) or where a reference has been made to its under sub sec. (2), the Lok Adalat shall proceed to dispose of the case or matter of case and arrive at the compromise or settlement between parties.
• Every Lok Adalat shall, while determining any reference before it under this act, act to the utmost expedition to arrive at compromise or settlement between the parties and shall be guided by the principles of justice, equality fair play and other legal principles.
• Where no reward is made by the Lok Adalat on the ground that no compromise or settlement could be arrived at between the parties, the record of case shall be returned by it to the court, by which the reference has been received under sub sec. (1) for disposal in accordance with law.
• Where no award is made by the Lok Adalat on the ground that no compromise or settlement could be arrived at between the parties in a matter referred to it under sub sec. (2) of sec. 18 that Lok Adalat shall advise the parties in a matter referred to in sub sec. (2), that Lok Adalat shall advise the parties to seek remedy in a court.
• Where the record of the case is returned under sub sec. (5) to the court, such court shall proceed to deal with such cases from the stage which was reached before such reference under sub sec. (1).

Procedure of Lok-Adalats (Sec. 20)

• The Lok Adalats are generally organized by state legal aid and advice boards or the district legal aid committees etc.
• Lok Adalats shall have jurisdiction to determine and arrive at a compromise or settlement between the parties to a dispute in respect of; a) Any case pending before the court; or b) Any matter which is falling within the jurisdiction of and is not brought before any court for which the Lok Adalat is organized. The Lok Adalat shall not have jurisdiction in respect of any matter or case relating to an offence not compoundable under any law.
• The date and place of holding a Lok Adalat are fixed about a month in advance by the Legal Aid Board. The date so fixed is generally a Saturday or Sunday or some other holiday.
• 1nformation about holding a Lok Adalat is given wide publicity through press, posters, radio, TV, etc.
• Before a Lok-Adalat is held, its organizers request the presiding officers of the various local courts to examine cases pending in their courts where in their opinion, conciliation is possible. Once the cases are identified, parties to the dispute are motivated by the judges of the Lok Adalats to settle their cases through Lok Adalat.
• Generally, senior judicial officers are invited to inaugurate a Lok Adalat.
• The team of Lok Adalat generally consist of retired judges, senior local officers, members of the Bar, spirited public-men, active women social worker, elders of the locality and voluntary social organizations. The members of the Lok Adalat are called conciliators. The number of conciliators is usually three.
• If conciliation result in a settlement of a dispute, a compromise deed is drawn up and after obtaining the signatures of the parties to the disputes and their advocates, it is presented to the presiding officer of the competent court who is normally present at the place where the Lok Adalat is organized.
• The judge (Presiding officer) after examining the fairness and legality of compromise and satisfying himself that the compromise has been arrived at by the free will and mutual consent of the parties, passes a decree.

Award of Lok-Adalat (Sec. 21)

• Every award of the Lok Adalat shall be deemed to be a decree of civil court or as the case may be, an order of any other court and where a compromise or a settlement has been arrived at, by a Lok Adalat in a case referred to it under sec. 20(1), the court fee paid in such case shall be refunded in a manner provided under the court fee Act, 1870.
• Even award made by a Lok Adalat shall be final and binding on all the parties to the dispute and no appeal shall lie to any court against the award.

Powers of Lok Adalat (Sec. 22)

• The Lok-Adalat shall have the same powers as are vested in a civil court under the code of civil procedure 1908 while trying a suit in respect of the following matters namely; a) The summoning and enforcing the attendance of any witness and examining him on oath. b) The discovery and production of any document. c) The reception of evidence on affidavits. d) The requisitioning of any public record or document or copy of such record or document from any court of office and e) Such other matters as may be prescribed.
• Without prejudice to the generality of the powers contained in sub sec. (1), every Lok Adalat shall have the requisite powers to specify its own procedure for the determination of any dispute coming before it.
• All proceedings before the Lok Adalat shall be deemed to be judicial proceedings within the meaning of sec. 193, 219 and 228 of the I.P.C and every Lok-Adalat shall deemed to be civil for the purpose of sec. 195 of C. P C.

Functions of the Lok Adalat:

Other forms of lok-adalats:.

• Mini Lok Adalat: Legal aid camps or Lok-Adalats at sub-district level and in villages are like forums, functioning in rural areas especially to cater to rural and tribal people competently and at their door steps to resolve disputes with all the expediency.
• Village Courts: These are units of self government they are like village Panchayats administration is a state subject hence state Panchayats Raj institutions enactments come into play, giving rise to village courts under articles 40 of our Constitution.
• Mediation Centre’s: These mediating Centres’s were started in the year 1983 in Tamil Nadu legal aid and advice Board.
• Centre’s for women: To give a special status to women and their exclusive problems Tamil Nadu state gave thrust and expansion to women mediation Centre’s by starting such Centre’s exclusively for women their role is to deal with matrimonial problems. They also help in setting disputes involving women. They promote nights of women family matters get special attention of; a) Voluntary agencies b) Professionals.
• Mobile Lok Adalats are also organized in various parts of the country which travel from one location to another to resolve disputes in order to facilitate the resolution of disputes through this mechanism.
• https://nalsa.gov.in/lok-adalat .
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lok_Adalat.
• https://blog.ipleaders.in/lok-adalats-india-speedy-justice/.
• S. K. Sarkar, Law Relating to Lok Adalats and Legal Aid: Being Commentary on the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 with Central & State Rules,(Oriented Publishing, Ist Edn., 2004).

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Emergence of Lok Adalat as the most efficacious tool of Alternative Dispute Resolution

A total number of 1,27,87,329 cases were disposed off in 2021 due to technological advancement like e-lok adalats, lok adalats have reached doorsteps of parties.

National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) is committed to deliver prompt and inexpensive justice to the citizens. Recently, it has decided to lay more emphasis on contribution of National Lok Adalat in effectively reducing the number of pending cases through Alternative Dispute Mechanisms.

To achieve this goal, the Legal Services Authorities shifted to dynamic preparation strategies for organization of the Lok Adalats. As a preparatory measure, NALSA started organization of prior consultative and review meetings with all the State Legal Services Authorities to guide them towards the maximum disposal during such Lok Adalats. Before the organization of each National Lok Adalat, multiple interactions were organised with the Executive Chairpersons of all the State Legal Services Authorities, wherein one-to-one interactions were made to take a stock of the preparations as well as to boost the morale of the stakeholders tasked to organize the Lok Adalats.

A cumulative effect of all the preparatory and mobilization measures resulted in extraordinary disposal figures during the year 2021. Across the country, a total number of 1,27,87,329 cases were disposed of in four National Lok Adalats, which included a huge number of pending cases i.e., 55,81,117 and a record number of pre-litigation cases i.e., 72,06,212. Through these activities the Legal Services Authorities disposed off a large number of cases giving relief to the common citizens by ending or preventing long lasting legal battles.

Achieving these unprecedented disposal figures was not an easy task. A major contribution to this success can be attributed to the technological advancements. In June 2020, the Legal Services Authorities integrated technology with the conventional modes of dispute settlement and introduced virtual Lok Adalats also called as ‘E-Lok Adalats’ . Since then, all the Lok Adalats including National Lok Adalats are organized through virtual and hybrid modes. To provide an unhindered experience during the proceedings, the Legal Services Authorities across the country are continuously upgrading their digital infrastructure.

Due to these technological advancements, Lok Adalats have reached to the doorsteps of the parties. The parties are now able to join the Lok Adalat proceedings from their homes or workplaces, saving them the hassle of travelling and reserving a full day for an affair, which gets over within minutes. The Authorities have witnessed that a large number of persons joined the virtual proceedings sitting hundreds of kilometers away from the physical location where the Lok Adalat was organized. Technology has also provided effective ways of supervision and monitoring of Lok Adalats.

The other major factor in the success of Lok Adalats was the formulation of decisive strategies at the National level. Under these strategies, the State Legal Services Authorities were instructed to conduct meetings with various stakeholder across every level with an objective to ensure their full cooperation and coordination. The authorities were guided to follow a litigant friendly approach as well as to persuade such litigants to settle the cases involving settled propositions of law.

Moreover, certain areas of law having greater possibilities of settlement such as NI Act cases, Bank recovery cases along other financial matters were highlighted and authorities were instructed to explore all the possibilities of compromise in such cases. The authorities were advised to proactively monitor the issuance and completion of processes in such financial matters as well as to conduct pre-Lok Adalat sittings to take a matter to a settlement.

There is no doubt regarding the fact that the number of pending cases surged during the ongoing pandemic. However, with a large number of disposals through Lok Adalats, a balance was created by the Legal Services Authorities in the judicial administration of the country. There is no gainsaying that the Lok Adalats settled greater number of cases than any other dispute resolution mechanism and emerged as the most efficacious tool of Alternative Dispute Resolution Mechanism.

During the year, the category wise list of the disposed cases was topped by the Criminal Compoundable Cases, wherein a total number of 17,63,233 such pending cases and 18,67,934 pre-litigation cases were disposed. The second in line were the Revenue cases consisting of 11,59,794 pre-litigation and 14,99,558 pending cases. Apart from these, the other disposed of cases were cheque bounce cases under NI Act, Bank Recovery Cases, Motor Accident Claims, Labour Disputes, matrimonial cases, etc.

Permanent Lok Adalat Report