Supreme Court judge P Sathasivam has urged the State government to settle its cases through Lok Adalats, being conducted by the TN State Legal Services Authority (TNSLSA).
Inaugurating the second floor of the ‘Satta Udhavi Maiyam’ at the TNSLA building behind the Madras High Court on Saturday, Justice Sathasivam said that the government was the major litigant.
All the claims and applications of people pending before the government departments must be treated as pre-litigations. The judiciary has to persuade the departments to settle all the matters in the Lok Adalats.
For conducting mega lok adalats, officers of the TNSLSA have to interact with police, revenue, forest, labour, cooperative, electricity, municipal authorities and higher level officers in insurance companies and members of the bar. To encourage people to get the benefits of the mega lok adalats, the judiciary had to insist that the electricity, bank, local bodies and other government departments give relief to people by reducing and relaxing the amounts of tax, surcharge, interest and penalty to be levied on, if they settle the disputes in the adalat, he added.
Madras High Court Acting Chief Justice Elipe Dharma Rao said the ideal judicial system was inspired by the twin objectives of securing inexpensive justice in the real and substantial sense as well as speedy justice to the litigants who were required to resort to courts of law. A total of 76,986 cases got settled in the lok adalats conducted by the Authority, leading to passing of awards of `69.03 crore, last year.
Lok adalat was an innovative Indian contribution to the judiciary system and it played an important role in settling disputes in an indigenous manner, Justice C Nagappan said. Justices Chita Venkataraman and V Dhanapalan also spoke.