Latest News | Govt to Hold Series of Lok Adalats to Dispose Pending Consumer Cases

New Delhi, Oct 12 (PTI) Initiating a special drive to dispose the pending consumer cases, the Consumer Affairs Ministry has planned a National Lok Adalat on November 12 and a Mahagrahak Lok Aadalat in December.

Later, the government aims to institutionalise Lok Adalat in the state and district consumer courts and assign a day in a week for early settlement of consumer cases.

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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 amicably. Lok Adalats have been given statutory status under the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987.

"The groundwork for this exercise has already been initiated and all the consumer commissions have been intimated to identify cases that have an element of settlement and prepare a list of pending cases that can be referred to Lok Adalat," senior Consumer Affairs Ministry official said.

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Lok Adalat offers a convenient forum where disputes/cases pending in the commissions can be settled amicably, she said.

With the help of technology, a separate link has been created on the Department of Consumer Affairs' website and circulated amongst all stakeholders wherein one can enter their pending case number and commission where the case is pending and easily refer the matter to Lok Adalat.

The link has been circulated through e-mail and SMS. Till date, over 4,91,665 SMSs and 86,894 e-mails have been sent. A total of 2,910 consent has been received, the official said.

The department has also held a virtual meeting with the consumer commissions which had pending cases filed before 2000. The deliberations were also held with state and consumer organisations.

As a result, the number of pending cases has come down from 6, 07,996 in September, 2022 to 5,67,263 as on October 11.

Similarly, 3,486 cases which were pending since more than 20 years as on July, 2022 has come down to 751 as on October 11, the official added.PTI LUX

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)