Section 22 of Legal Services Authority Act

Free legal aid is a right of the needy so that no citizen is denied the opportunity to provide justice because of economic, social or other handicaps. The law therefore provides legal mechanisms to provide legal aid to the poor and to organize Lok Adalats as a voluntary and conciliatory body to settle cases not only in the procedural phase but even in the pre-trial phase. LAs aim to bring justice to the poor and needy and to enable faster justice at a lower cost. As for the judicial services of the State, they are headed by a chief boss who is none other than the Honourable President of the Supreme Court. In almost all Crown agencies, with perhaps one or two exceptions, a sitting Supreme Court justice acts as acting chair. A district judge acts as a member secretary. With regard to Kerala, the other members are the Registrar of the Supreme Court, the Advocate General, the Director General of the Public Prosecutor`s Office, the Chief Speaker of the Kerala Bar Association, the President of the Kerala High Court Lawyers Association, the Legal Secretary, the Financial Secretary, the Director of Health Services, the Chief Constable of Police, the Chairperson of the Kerala State Women`s Commission and persons with special knowledge and practical experience in social services. and so on. Other state agencies also have similar constitutions. It is these authorities, with such eminent personalities, who recommend the names of PLA members. It is a body composed of the President of the Supreme Court and a sitting judge, who is the executive chairman of the State authority, composed of eminent personalities in the field of law, who recommend these members.

The members so recommended must be appointed by the Government. Members so appointed must be appointed by the authority concerned as members of the LPA. Members recommended by the Authority cannot be considered politically considered or unable to serve as members of the PLA. A panel composed of the Chief Justice and a sitting or retired judge and other persons with the status of district judge and advocate general, the president of the Bar Council, etc., cannot be expected to recommend incompetent persons as members of the PLA. These respectable people, hopefully, will only ever recommend competent people. It cannot be assumed that these prestigious bodies, composed of highly respected personalities, recommend incompetent public office holders. Article 22-B of the Act provides for the establishment of permanent adalats for locomotives. The central or state authority in accordance with the law shall establish permanent adalats locomotives for one or more public services. As regards the second allegation, namely whether the Lok Adalat permanente has judicial powers, the Court held that the objectives and grounds of the LSA amending Act emphasise that the Lok Adalat permanent was created for public services which can exercise both conciliation and judicial functions. subject to the procedure set out in section 22-C of the LSA Act. The law has been successfully implemented and administered in recent years, providing for legal aid, the implementation of legal aid and the organization of legal literacy projects.

Society as a whole, including the legal community, has welcomed these activities by legal service agencies nationally. Several thousand cases pending before the courts have been settled and millions of rupees have been distributed as compensation in car accident cases to avoid the inconvenience of hearings. No one objected; and all encouraged the activities of legal services authorities throughout the country. In response, the Court examined the legal framework of the Legal Services Act 1987. It also deals with the explanatory memorandum to the LSA Amendment Act. In view of the above, the Court noted that the amendment proposed the creation of a permanent Lok Adalat, which provides for a mandatory pre-litigation mechanism for mediation and the resolution of public service cases. It would essentially act as an alternative dispute settlement body to settle disputes on the merits if the parties fail to reach a compromise or settlement, the court noted. In recent years, Lok Adalat has proven to be an effective alternative dispute resolution tool in India. It is the most popular and effective due to its innovative nature and inexpensive style. The system was widely accepted not only by litigants, but also by the public and legal officials in general. In India, Lok Adalat has been continuously and permanently active in every district centre in recent years. Lok Adalats meetings were also successfully held in Taluk centres.

Several thousand pending cases and litigation that had not been brought before the courts were settled by Lok Adalats. The biggest challenge facing the justice system today is the backlog of cases and the prohibitive cost of litigation. Alternative dispute resolution was seen as a weapon to meet this challenge. In 1990, Justice Malimath`s Committee emphasized the importance of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms to complement the Legal Forum in order to relieve the courts of the burden of overflowing cases. In December 1993, the Conference of Chief Ministers of States and Presidents of the High Court adopted a resolution stressing their importance. The resolution reads as follows: Chapter VI-A was inserted into the Act pursuant to the Legal Services Authorities (Amendment) Act 2002. In accordance with the declaration and objectives of the amending law, it was proposed to establish permanent Lok Adalats to provide a mandatory pre-litigation mechanism for mediation and settlement of public service cases. Chapter VI-A was incorporated into the law mainly to establish alternative dispute resolution bodies in the form of permanent Lok Adalats to settle disputes on the merits when the parties fail to reach a compromise or settlement. The Legal Services Authorities Act of 1987 provides for the establishment of legal services authorities to provide free and competent legal services to the weaker sections of society, to ensure that opportunities to provide justice are not denied to any citizen because of economic or other obstacles, and to organize Lok Adalats (LA) to ensure that the functioning of the legal system Promote equity on the basis of equal opportunities. 2. Without prejudice to the generality of the powers provided for in paragraph 1, each 1 [Lok Adalat or Lok Adalat permanent] shall have the necessary powers to determine its own procedure for the settlement of a dispute submitted to it. The Membership Secretary of the State Legal Services Authority organizing the Lok Adalat would form benches of the Lok Adalat, each chamber consisting of a current or retired judge of the Supreme Court or a current or retired bailiff and one or both members of the legal profession; A social worker who is committed to valuing the weaker strata and who is interested in implementing legal services programs or programs.