Pushpinder Singh, Civil Judge, Sr. Divn.-cum-Secretary, District Legal Services Authority, Amritsar. As per the directions given by National Legal Services Authority and Punjab State Legal Services Authority, SAS Nagar, Mohali. Under the guidance of Smt. Harpreet Kaur Randhawa, Hon’ble District & Sessions Judge, Amritsar a National Lok Adalat was held on 12.03.2022 at District Courts Amritsar, Ajnala and Baba Bakala Sahib. In this regard, in total 33 benches have been constituted; 26 Benches at Amritsar, 1 Bench of Permanent Lok Adalat, 4 Benches at Ajnala and 2 Bench at Baba Bakala Sahib were constituted for taking up and disposal of maximum cases in National Lok Adalat. A total number of 20419 cases were taken up in this National Lok Adalat and 6643 cases were disposed of.
Categories of Cases Taken up in this National Lok Adalat are as Criminal Compoundable, Bank Recovery, Cheque Bounce, Matrimonial Disputes, Electricity and Water bills, Telecoms, MACT Matters, Labour Disputes, Traffic Challans etc.It was told by the Ld. Chairman that the Lok Adalats are organized by Legal Services Authorities, are an Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) mode wherein pre-litigative and pending cases in the courts would be disposed on the basis of amicable settlement without any expense on the part of litigants. It is free of cost and expeditious method to bring litigating parties to a settlement of their disputes and saving them from prolong litigation under adversarial system of adjudication which is generally perceived to be time consuming, complex and costly. Lok Adalats are also instrumental in reducing the burden on arrears of the court disposal of long pending litigation between the parties.