National Lok Adalat 2022- Relevance for UPSC Exam
- GS Paper 2: Indian Constitution- Statutory, regulatory and various quasi-judicial bodies.
National Lok Adalat 2022 in News
- Recently, government informed that National Lok Adalat will be held on 12th November 2022 across the country to despose off pending cases through settlement.
- Considering the benefits of the Lok Adalat system and mutual settlement between parties a large number of consumer cases are expected to be disposed of.
- National Lok Adalats are held at regular intervals where on a single day Lok Adalats are held throughout the country, in all the courts right from the Supreme Court to the District level wherein cases are disposed of in huge numbers.
National Lok Adalat 2022- Steps to Maximize Outcomes
- Department of Consumer Affairs is reaching out to consumers, companies, and organizations through SMS and emails to have maximum outreach and benefit consumers.
- With the help of technology, a separate link is being created and circulated amongst all stakeholders wherein one can enter their pending case number and commission where the case is pending and easily refer the matter to Lok Adalat.
- The link shall be circulated through email and SMS.
- Through data analytics, sector-wise distribution of pendency has been identified such as banking with a total number of 71379 pending cases, insurance with 168827, e-commerce with 1247, electricity with 33919, railways with 2316, etc.
- Steps are being taken towards the settlement of such consumer cases on priority.
- Department is in the process of collaborating with the National Legal Service Authority (NALSA) for referring the inclusion of pending consumer cases to be disposed of through the upcoming National Lok Adalat.
Lok Adalat
- Lok Adalat is one of the alternative dispute redressal mechanisms where disputes or cases pending in the court of law or at pre-litigation stage are compromised amicably.
Legal basis
- Lok Adalats have been given statutory status under the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987.
- The Act constitutes provisions to provide free legal services to the weaker sections of the society according to Article 39A of the constitution.
Contempt of Court
Powers
- Under the said Act, the award made by the Lok Adalats is deemed to be a decree of a civil court and is final and binding on all parties and no appeal against such an award lies before any court of law.
- If the parties are not satisfied with the award of the Lok Adalat, there is no provision for an appeal against such an award, however they are free to initiate litigation by approaching the court of appropriate jurisdiction.
No court fees
- There is no court fee payable when a matter is filed in a Lok Adalat.
- If a matter pending in the court of law is referred to the Lok Adalat and is settled subsequently, the court fee originally paid in the court on the complaints/petition is also refunded back to the parties.
Lok Adalat composition
- Every Lok Adalat organised for an area shall consist of
- A judicial officer as a chairman,
- and a lawyer and a social worker as members.
FASTER system of Supreme Court
Lok Adalat types
- National Lok Adalat
- These are held at regular intervals all over the nation at all levels starting from State authority level to the Taluka level.
- Permanent Lok Adalat
- These are established as permanent bodies with a chairman and two members who provide a pre-litigative mechanism for settlement of matters relating to public utility services
- If parties to the dispute fail to follow the settlement mechanism, then the permanent Lok Adalat have jurisdiction to decide the matter.
- As per legal services authority of India, the permanent Lok Adalat has a jurisdiction not exceeding 10 lakhs.
- Mobile Lok Adalat
- Mobile Lok Adalat are courts that travel from one place to another in order to help the parties in dispute reach an amicable settlement.
Jurisdiction of Lok Adalat