Early Times Report
Jammu, Nov 18: Chief Justice of the state has declared for holding of Lok Adalats herein across Jammu & Kashmir on 23rd November 2013 with the sole object to providing speedy and inexpensive settlement of peoples' disputes. Preparations for setting up of Lok Adalats across state are on. Earlier some Mega Lok Adalats were also held with great fan-fare and certainly huge number of cases were settled, Crores of rupees were distributed to the motor-accident victims, earth quake victims of Uri & flash-flood victims of Ladakh, settlement of insurance claims besides helping recovery of huge loan amount advanced by various banks through the conciliatory method and astute mediation by judges, yet the object behind the legislation remain to be achieved. In order to be more articulate, the Legal Service Authority Act provides an alternate dispute resolution system which is totally different, speedy & inexpensive as compared to the justice delivery system based on procedural laws, adopted in the regular courts.
Precisely, when a case is filed in the court, both the parties have to pass through various stage of procedure including examining of witnesses.
Finally judgment is delivered by the court and a decree is passed after hearing arguments of the parties.
The decision given by the Court can be challenged in appeal before a higher court of competent jurisdiction & there is a provision for a second appeal also. The litigating parties can still move the Supreme Court for redressal of their grievance.
The usual procedure adopted in Lok Adalat is to take up cases of civil nature, Land Disputes, Partition/Property Disputes, Labour Disputes etc, and non-compoundable criminal cases already pending in civil courts of tehsil level, district level or even in High Court/Supreme Court by referring them to Lok Adalats, which have the jurisdiction to determine and to arrive at a compromise or settlement by conciliatory method or through mediation in which parties themselves actively participate. |
