The Permanent Lok Adalat

In one line

The Permanent Lok Adalat handles pre-litigation disputes about public utility services, and if conciliation fails it does what an ordinary Lok Adalat can never do: it decides the dispute itself, and its award is final.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: Chapter VIA of the Legal Services Authorities Act 1987, inserted by the amendment of 2002, provides for Permanent Lok Adalats established by the Central or State Authority for one or more public utility services; any party may apply before the dispute is brought before a court, after which no party may invoke the jurisdiction of any court in the same dispute; the Permanent Lok Adalat conducts conciliation, and where the parties fail to agree it shall decide the dispute on merits if it does not relate to an offence; its award, whether on merit or in terms of a settlement, is final and binding and is deemed a decree of a civil court.

Section 22A: the definitions that fix the jurisdiction

Permanent Lok Adalat means one established under section 22B(1).

Public utility service, and the list should be learned, means any transport service for the carriage of passengers or goods by air, road or water; postal, telegraph or telephone service; supply of power, light or water to the public by any establishment; any system of public conservancy or sanitation; service in a hospital or dispensary; or insurance service. It also includes any service which the Central or State Government, in the public interest, declares by notification to be a public utility service for the purposes of the Chapter.

So the jurisdiction is subject-matter based, unlike the ordinary Lok Adalat whose jurisdiction follows the court's. Insurance and electricity are the two that generate most of the work.

Section 22B: establishment and composition

Notwithstanding section 19, the Central Authority or every State Authority shall by notification establish Permanent Lok Adalats at such places, for such jurisdiction in respect of one or more public utility services, and for such areas as the notification specifies.

Composition, and this is examinable. A Chairman who is or has been a district judge or additional district judge, or has held judicial office higher in rank than a district judge; and two other persons having adequate experience in public utility service, nominated by the Central or State Government on the recommendation of the Authority.

Three members, one of them judicial and two expert. Compare the ordinary Lok Adalat of section 19(2), whose composition is left to the organising body.

Section 22C: how a matter comes and what happens to it

Subsection (1): pre-litigation only. Any party to a dispute may, before the dispute is brought before any court, apply to the Permanent Lok Adalat for settlement.