Principal District and Sessions judge and President of District Legal Services Authority, P.G.M. Patil announced that monthly Lok Adalats for the current calendar year would begin from February 14. He was addressing a press conference at his office here on Tuesday.
“As per the directions of National Legal Services Authority, Lok Adalats would be held across the district on specified matters. These would be for pre-litigation and pending cases,” he said.
According to the schedule he released, the first Lok Adalat to be held on February 14 would take up cases pertaining to bank matter. Subsequent Lok Adalats would be held on March 14 (revenue, MGNREGA and land acquisition cases), April 11 (labour and family matters), May 9 or June 13 (MACT and insurance claim), July 11 (electricity, water, telephone, public utility issues), August 8 (consumer disputes and tax matters), September 12 (criminal compoundable matters) and October 10 (traffic, petty matters and municipal issues). National Lok Adalat would be held either in November or December.
“Lok Adalats are very helpful to people as they save valuable time, money and energy. They also help develop cordial relationship between the two contending parties. As the verdict in the Lok Adalat would be reached at mutual consent, it cannot be challenged in any courts,” he said.
Lok Adalats in the district, he added, evoked good response last year considering the settlements in over 9,381 cases and recovery of Rs. 64,58,000 and settlement of over Rs. 1.25 crores.
He said there were 21,000 civil cases and around 20,000 criminal cases pending in the district courts.
