The initiative taken by the district Legal Services Authority to bring down the huge pendency of cases in different courts from September by organising continuous sittings of Lok Adalats has yielded rich dividends as nearly 10 per cent of pending cases in 33 different courts across the district have been settled.
Principal District and Sessions judge D.R. Venkatasudarshan, who inaugurated the mega Lok Adalat here on Saturday, said that one of the features of the programme was that a large number of long-pending civil cases were settled through conciliation. Out of the total 30,038 pending cases till Friday, 2,455 were settled through conciliation.
He said that 50 per cent of the pending cases were civil and the remaining criminal. During the mega Lok Adalat, 216 long-pending civil cases were settled, and one case conciliated by the First Additional District and Sessions judge, S.B. Gunjigavi, was 15-year old, he said.
During the Lok Adalat, 100 cases related to motor vehicles were settled amicably and a compensation of Rs. 1.02 crore paid to accident victims and their family members. Lok Adalat, in its 200 sittings from September 1 to November 22, had settled 66 execution petitions, he said.
First Additional District and Sessions judge S.B. Gunjigavi, in his address, said that many banks had come forward to settle both pre-litigant cases and those pending in court for closing of loan accounts and failure to pay loan instalments in the Lok Adalats.
Cases pertaining to non-payment of dues to banks and others pertaining to banks, which were listed for settlement in Lok Adalats should be taken up separately. Each and every case should be studied in depth to facilitate settlement, he said.
Deputy Commissioner N.V. Prasad said that the large pendency of cases was delaying the deliverance of justice.
Second Additional Civil and JMFC Magistrate K. Vidya welcomed and president of the Gulbarga Bar Association D.K. Yusuf presided over. Member secretary of the district Legal Services Authority A. Vijayan was present.
Shortage
Raichur Staff Correspondent reports :
P. Krishna Bhatt, president of the district Legal Services Authority and the Principal District and Sessions judge, has said that 3,258 cases have been settled through Lok Adalat.
Inaugurating the Mega Lok Adalat here on Saturday, jointly organised by the district Legal Services Authority and Lawyers’ Association, he urged the people to make use of programme. He attributed the alleged delay in the delivery of justice to a wide gap between population and number of courts.
