KOZHIKODE: Residents of Kodiyathur village are no longer ready to waste their time and money on resolving legal complications through courts. Instead they are determined to keep the lawyers at an arm’s length, by settling legal disputes through mutual discussions and mediation.
All courtesy a legal awareness camp held by office-bearers of Nanma, a charitable trust, in association with District Legal Service Society (DLSS) and the Legal Aid Clinic.
The combined effort of the villagers, assisted by Nanma, is now on the verge of securing for Kodiyathur the distinction of being the second litigation-free village in all of India. (The first was Cheriyanad in Alappuzha, which was declared one by Indian Chief Just ice K G Balakrishnan a year ago.) Regular sittings and legal awareness classes have been conducted in the village for the past six months. While the sittings have been conducted on Sundays, the awareness sessions were regularly conducted with the help of the DLSS.
“When we started the project six months ago there were 116 cases pending in various courts in the district. The number is now just 17 thanks to the counselling and awareness programmes,” says Razaq Kodiyathur, general secretary of Nanma Charitable Trust.
“What we do is arrange discussions between parties to a dispute,” say Nanma office-bearers.
“Many are keen to settle out of court and usually the disputants easily arrive at a mutual agreement.” “We counsel the parties to overcome their ego and take a sensible view of the whole dispute,” they said.
According to them, the cases which are still pending in court are related to political clashes.
