BENGALURU: Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka on Saturday said that they were mulling including different categories of cases, like those under the Maintenance and Welfare of Senior Citizens Act and Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, under the purview of the Lok Adalat, an alternative disputes resolution mechanism. He was delivering the presidential address at the inaugural session of the mega Lok Adalat organised by the Karnataka State Legal Services Authority (KSLSA).
At presently, cases under the the Motor Vehicles Act, accidents, matters related to financial institutions, criminal compoundable cases, are being settled through Lok Adalat amicably at no cost. Referring to a suggestion by KSLSA Executive Chairman Justice Aravind Kumar, Justice Oka said, “We have a very efficient arbitration and mediation centre in Karnataka. Perhaps we have neglected one part, that is conciliation.
The thought process has started now to commence conciliation either through establishing a conciliation centre or by entrusting the responsibility to the arbitration and mediation Centre” Delivering the inaugural address, Justice N Santosh Hegde, former judge of the Supreme Court, said that merely increasing the number of fora/courts and judges will not solve the problem, but it will only create a new one.
“We have to look into the increasing number of cases and how ‘speculative litigation’ is a burden to the justice delivery system. We must start thinking how there could be an end to the litigation and finding a way out of pending cases,” Justice Hegde said.