The Hindu : Centre to frame rules for permanent Lok Adalats

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Dec 31, 2002

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National

Centre to frame rules for permanent Lok Adalats

By J. Venkatesan

NEW DELHI Dec. 30. Notwithstanding the countrywide protest by lawyers, the Centre is going ahead with the framing of rules under the Legal Services Authorities (Amendment) Act, 2002 for the setting up of permanent Lok Adalats to bring under its ambit public utility service cases involving the Government.

According to highly-placed sources in the Law Ministry, once the rules are ready, the Government will issue a notification for implementation of the amended Act and establish permanent Lok Adalats and transfer at least 60 per cent of the cases from regular courts to these adalats for disposal within a year.

However, if lawyers and litigants face any problem during the course of implementation, the Government will consider introducing necessary amendments.

In the perception of the Government, the Civil Procedure Code amendments, being implemented from July 1 has proved to be beneficial to the litigants.

Once the committee set up by the Supreme Court formulates the case management system, things would improve further.

Similarly the concept should also be given a try and the working of the system should be monitored before effecting any further changes in the Act.

In its year-end review, the Law Ministry has said that the introduction of these amendments was a landmark achievement of the NDA Government designed to expedite civil justice delivery system.

All public utility services such as transport — passenger or goods by air, road or water, postal, telegraph or telephone services, supply of power and water, public conservancy or sanitation, hospitals, insurance would now go to permanent Lok Adalats.

Added to this about 1,300 fast track courts out of 1,734 have become functional and over 60,000 criminal cases had been disposed of by these courts.

The passage of the Bill to amend the Representation of the People Act is considered a milestone to free the polity from crimes and criminals considerably by way of giving effect to the judgment of the Supreme Court.

As a result candidates contesting elections to Parliament and State legislatures will have to give information regarding their antecedents including criminal background as part of conceding voters' right to information.

The enactment of the Companies Amendment Acts and the Competition Act was intended to give a fillip to second generation economic reforms.

The Constitution (86th Amendment) Act, 2002 to make education for children between 6 and 14 years of age a fundamental right is yet another landmark decision of the Government this year.

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