National Lok Adalat

Context

National Lok Adalat will be held on 12 November across the country to dispose off pending cases through settlement.

The Lok Adalat is one of the alternative dispute redressal mechanisms platform where the cases (or disputes) which are pending before a court or which are at the pre-litigation stage (not yet brought before a court) are compromised or settled in an agreeable manner.
The ‘Lok Adalat’ is one of the components of the ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution) system.
National Legal Services Authority of India (NALSA) along with other Legal Services Institutions conducts Lok Adalats.
Indian courts are overburdened with a backlog of cases and the regular courts are to decide the cases involving a lengthy, expensive and tedious procedure.

Lok Adalat provides alternative resolutions for expeditious and inexpensive justice.

Lok Adalat is an alternate mode of dispute settlement that has come to be accepted as a viable, economic, efficient and informal one.
Lok Adalat is one of the alternative dispute redressal mechanisms, it is a forum where disputes/cases pending in the court of law or at pre-litigation stage are settled/ compromised amicably.

The first Lok Adalat camp was organised in Gujarat in 1982. This initiative proved very successful in the settlement of disputes.

The institution of Lok Adalat started spreading to other parts of the country.
At that time, this institution was functioning as a voluntary and conciliatory agency without any statutory backing for its decisions.

The institution of Lok Adalat has been given statutory status under the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987.

Any case pending before any court.
Any dispute which has not been brought before any court and is likely to be filed before the court.

Any matter relating to an offence not compoundable under the law shall not be settled in Lok Adalat.

About NALSA

The NALSA was founded in 1995 under the Legal Services Authorities Act of 1987 to monitor and review the effectiveness of legal aid programs and to develop rules and principles for providing legal services under the Act.

As per section 3(2) of Legal Service Authorities Act, the Chief Justice of India shall be the Patron-in-Chief.

Second senior-most judge of the Supreme Court of India is the Executive-Chairman.

It also distributes funding and grants to state legal services authorities and non-profit organisations to help them execute legal aid systems and initiatives.