Chandigarh, May 13:
Under the visionary leadership of Hon’ble Mr. Justice M.S. Ramachandra Rao, Judge, Punjab & Haryana High Court and Executive Chairman of Punjab State Legal Services Authority, the National Lok Adalat has been organized on 13.05.2023 throughout the State of Punjab.
In this Lok Adalat, approximately 2, 31,456 cases were taken up in total 323 Benches of Lok Adalat. Various long pending matters relating to matrimonial disputes, property disputes, cheque bounce cases, labour matters, criminal compoundable cases, cancellation/untraced reports of various FIRs etc. were taken up. Apart from this, various awards were passed with the consent of the parties.
On this occasion, Ms. Smriti Dhir, Additional District & Sessions Judge-cum-Additional Member Secretary has apprised that the Lok Adalat is one of the most constructive tool to settle the grievances of the litigants in an amicable way and appealed the general public to settle their disputes in the Lok Adalats to be organized in future. She said that free legal aid is boon for the marginalized sections of the society and every person who belongs to the weaker section of the society, member of scheduled caste/tribe, women/children, victims of natural calamities, hawalati and the person whose income is less than Rs.3 lakh is entitled to free legal services.
On this day, people were also made aware about the facility of 24X7 Toll-Free Helpline 1968 for providing any kind of legal assistance to the needy persons particularly the marginalized sections of society.
