Chandigarh/Gurgaon, Dec 20 (IANS) On the first day of the two-day mega Lok Adalat (public courts) event ‘Samadhan-2008’ Saturday, thousands of cases were disposed off across Punjab, Haryana and the union territory of Chandigarh.
The two day event is aimed at deciding over 300,000 cases pending in courts under the jurisdiction of the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
Describing the mega Lok Adalats as a historic event, Supreme Court judge D.K. Jain, who inaugurated the event formally at the judicial complex at Gurgaon town adjoining Delhi, said that it would help greatly in reducing the number cases pending before various courts.
“Through these mega Lok Adalats, petty cases can be decided through mutual consensus. In Haryana alone, over 125,000 pre-litigative cases have been decided in Lok Adalats before this mega event,” Jain said.
He complimented the Punjab and Haryana high court for organising Lok Adalats on a mega scale.
“Judicial officials and members of the bar association should play a pro-active role in providing speedy justice to people. If judicial officers settle petty cases early, they can concentrate better on the serious cases. But this should not be done by pressurizing any of the parties,” Justice Jain said.
Supreme Court judges H.S. Bedi and G.S. Singhvi, and Punjab and Haryana High Court Chief Justice Tirath Singh Thakur were present at the inaugural function of the event in Gurgaon.
In Punjab’s Hoshiarpur district, an area known for people taking every small matter to court, over 14,000 cases were disposed off in one day itself, officials said.
Thakur said that out of the over one million cases pending before the high court, over 300,000 are targeted to be settled in the mega Lok Adalats.
Executive chairman of Haryana State Legal Service Authority, Adarsh Kumar Goyal, Saturday said that till now in Haryana, over 177,000 cases had been settled in Lok Adalats in the run up to the mega-event.
These included 1,480 cases of motor and accident claims tribunal (MACT) in which Rs.200 million as compensation was awarded; 893 cases relating to bank loan recovery were settled and an amount of Rs.37.5 million was recovered. Other settled cases included those of bounced cheques, insurance claims and realisation of fines for petty offences.