Srinagar: The Lok Adalat has no jurisdiction to convict an accused or impose a fine as punishment, the J&K High Court has held.
Justice Sanjeev Kumar while hearing a plea from one Mushtaq Ahmad Pahalwan and another person convicted by National Lok Adalat in a case registered under Public Gambling Act 1977 in 2013 said that the offences under the act were not compoundable and therefore not subject to amicable settlement by the Lok Adalat.
The court said the Legal Services Authorities Act has been enacted to constitute legal services authorities to provide free and competent legal services to the weaker sections of the society to ensure that opportunities for securing justice are not denied to any citizen by reason of economic or other disabilities, and to organize Lok Adalats to secure that the operation of the legal system promotes justice on a basis of equal opportunity.
The jurisdiction of the Lok Adalat, it said, is only limited to the settlement of the offences which are compoundable under law and even in such cases the Lok Adalat has no jurisdiction to convict the accused and award punishment including the punishment of fine.
The petitioners had challenged that conviction on the ground that the Lok Adalat constituted under the J&K Legal Services Authorities Act, 1997, had no jurisdiction to convict an accused in a criminal offence and impose the punishment of fine, that too on the basis of so called confessional statement made by the accused.
Quashing the order passed by the National Lok Adalat, Justice Kumar observed that the order was not sustainable in law as the Lok Adalat does not have any power to convict the accused either on the basis of confessional statement or otherwise. It has only power to compound the offence provided the same is provided under any law.
“The file which upon passing of the award of Lok Adalat has been consigned to record shall be retrieved and placed before the Chief Judicial Magistrate Chadoora for further proceedings,” the court directed.

NUSRAT SIDIQ