By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, OCT 07, 2022: NATIONAL Lok Adalat will be held on 12th November 2022 across the country to despose off pending cases through settlement.

Considering the benefits of the Lok Adalat system and mutual settlement between parties a large number of consumer cases are expected to be disposed of.

Groundwork for this exercise has already been initiated and all the consumer commissions have been intimated to identify cases that have an element of settlement and prepare a list of pending cases that can be referred to Lok Adalat. Regular monitoring of the making of the list is been done by the department.

To have maximum outreach and benefit consumers, Department is reaching out to consumers, companies, and organizations through SMS and emails. Department has the phone numbers and emails of 3 lakh parties whose cases are pending before the commissions. The Department has done a Video Conferencing with the Consumer Commissions which has more than 200 pending cases.

With the help of technology, a separate link is being created and circulated amongst all stakeholders wherein one can enter their pending case number and commission where the case is pending and easily refer the matter to Lok Adalat. The link shall be circulated through email and SMS.

Through data analytics, sector-wise distribution of pendency has been identified such as banking with a total number of 71379 pending cases, insurance with 168827, e-commerce with 1247, electricity with 33919, railways with 2316, etc., and efforts are being made towards the settlement of such consumer cases on priority.

Department of Consumer Affairs is constantly monitoring the disposal of cases in Consumer Commissions and is in the process of collaborating with the National Legal Service Authority (NALSA) for referring the inclusion of pending consumer cases to be disposed of through the upcoming National Lok Adalat, where both parties mutually agree on a settlement. Communication in this regard has already been made to NALSA.

For further information and assistance to get their pending case referred to Lok Adalat, they can register their cases for the reference to Lok Adalat through the link http://cms.nic.in/ncdrcusersWeb/lad.do?method=lalp or can call on 1915, National Consumer Helpline who will assist them in the process. Also, the Consumer Commissions can upload the updated list of referred cases on the portal through the above-mentioned link.

 National Lok Adalats are held at regular intervals where on a single day Lok Adalats are held throughout the country, in all the courts right from the Supreme Court to the District level wherein cases are disposed of in huge numbers.

The mission of the Department of Consumer Affairs is to strengthen consumer protection and safety through progressive legislation, empower consumers through awareness and education, and provide access to fair and efficient grievance redressal mechanisms. National Legal Service Authority (NALSA) along with other Legal Service institutions conducts Lok Adalats. It is one of the alternate dispute redressal mechanisms, it's a forum where disputes/cases pending in the courts/commissions are settled/ compromised amicably.

There are about 6,07,996 consumer cases pending in the country. In NCDRC there are about 22250 numbers of cases pending. The major states like Uttar Pradesh with 28318 cases pending, Maharashtra with 18093 pending cases, Delhi with 15450 pending cases, Madhya Pradesh with 10319, and, Karnataka with 9615 pending cases are some of the states with the highest number of pendency. Some of the Districts with highest number of pendency are Muzaffarpur (Bihar) with 1853 number cases pending, Siwan (Bihar) with 1046, Patna (Bihar) with 4849, Ranchi (Jharkhand) with 1044, Khordha (Orissa) with 2308, Puri (Orissa) with 1884, Burdwan (West Bengal) with 1324, North 24 Parganas (West Bengal) with 1195, Howrah 9West Bengal) with 1253, Rajarhat (West Bengal) with 1148, Hisar (Haryana) with 2693, Rohtak (Haryana) with 2038, Gurgaon (Haryana) with 1811, Shimla (Himachal Pradesh) with 1125, Sangrur (Punjab) with 2688, SAS Nagar Mohali (Punjab) with 1755, Amritsar (Punjab) with 1675,  Churu (Rajasthan) with 4640, Alwar (Rajasthan) with 4180, Bharatpur (Rajasthan) with 1605,  Ajmer (Rajasthan) with 1977, Meerut (U.P.) with 2461, Ghaziabad (U.P) with 2442, Kanpur Nagar (U.P.) with 3789, Allahabad (U.P.) with 3299,  Jhansi (U.P.) with 2070, Gorakhpur (U.P.) with 3067, Ballia (U.P.) with 2372, Basti (U.P.) with 1947, Dehradun (Uttarakhand) with 1225, Trissur (Kerala) with 6391,  Ernakulam (Kerala) with 2951, Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala) with 1782, Belgaum (Karnataka) with 2221, Tirunelveli (Tamil Naidu) with 1242, Vadodara (Gujarat) with 2079, Surat (Gujarat) with 2585, Anand (Gujarat) with 1708, Jalgaon (Maharashtra) with 2020, Nagpur (Maharashtra) with 2337, Nanded (Maharashtra) with 5488, Thane (Maharashtra) with 3636,  Mumbai(Suburban) (Maharashtra) with 2834, Indore (M.P.) with 2652, Jabalpur (M.P.) with 2463, Bhopal (M.P.) with 2160, Durg (Chhattisgarh) with 2593, Raipur (Chhattisgarh) with 3329, Karimnagar (Telangana) with 1338.