Ensuring Quality Justice Delivery - Lok Adalats

What is the issue?

The Lok Adalats system must look beyond swift disposal of cases and focus on just and fair outcomes.

What are Lok Adalats?

• Access to justice for the poor is a constitutional mandate to ensure fair treatment under the legal system.
• Hence, Lok Adalats (literally, ‘People’s Court’) were established to make justice accessible and affordable to all.
• Lok Adalat is one of the alternative dispute redressal mechanisms.
• It is a forum where disputes/cases pending in the court of law or at pre-litigation stage are settled/ compromised amicably.
• Lok Adalats have been given statutory status under the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987.
• Motor-accident claims, disputes related to public-utility services, cases related to dishonour of cheques, and land, labour and matrimonial disputes (except divorce) are usually taken up by Lok Adalats.

How did Lok Adalats evolve?

• Lok Adalats had existed even before the concept received statutory recognition.
• In 1949, Harivallabh Parikh, a disciple of Mahatma Gandhi, popularised them in Rangpur, Gujarat.
• The Constitution (42nd Amendment) Act, 1976, inserted Article 39A to ensure “equal justice and free legal aid”.
• To this end, the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987, was enacted by the Parliament.
• It came into force in 1995 -
  1. to provide free and competent legal services to weaker sections of the society
  2. to organise Lok Adalats to secure that the operation of the legal system promotes justice on a basis of equal opportunity

Why are Lok Adalats significant?

• The Indian judicial system is often criticised, perhaps justifiably, for its endemic delays and excessive backlogs.
• Over 66,000 cases are pending before the Supreme Court, over 57 lakh cases before various HCs.
• Over 3 crore cases are pending before various district and subordinate courts.
• As a result, litigants are forced to approach Lok Adalats mainly because it is a party-driven process, allowing them to reach an amicable settlement.

What are the advantages?

• Lok Adalats offer parties speed of settlement, as cases are disposed of in a single day.
• In this aspect, it is better when compared to litigation, and even other dispute resolution devices, such as arbitration and mediation.
• It also offers procedural flexibility, as there is no strict application of procedural laws such as the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, and the Indian Evidence Act, 1872.
• There is also economic affordability, as there are no court fees for placing matters before the Lok Adalat.
• Another advantage is the finality of awards, as no further appeal is allowed.
• This prevents delays in settlement of disputes.
• More importantly, the award issued by a Lok Adalat, after the filing of a joint compromise petition, has the status of a civil court decree.

What are the concerns to be addressed?

• The Supreme Court, in State of Punjab vs Jalour Singh (2008), held that a Lok Adalat is purely conciliatory.
• It has no adjudicatory or judicial function.
• As compromise is its central idea, there is a valid concern that in the endeavour for speedy disposal of cases, it undermines the idea of justice.
• In a majority of cases, litigants are pitted against powerful entities such as insurance companies, banks, electricity boards, among others.
• In many cases, compromises are imposed on the poor who often have no choice but to accept them.
• In most cases, such litigants have to accept discounted future values of their claims instead of their just entitlements, or small compensations.
• It is being done just to bring a long-pending legal process to an end.
• Similarly, poor women under the so-called ‘harmony ideology’ of the state are virtually dictated by family courts to compromise matrimonial disputes.
• Even a disaster like the Bhopal gas tragedy was coercively settled for a paltry sum, with real justice still eluding thousands of victims.

What is the way forward?

• A just outcome of a legal process is far more important than expeditious disposal.
• So, besides efficiency and speed, Lok Adalats both online and offline should focus on the quality of justice delivered.

Source: The Hindu