Lok Adalats — Constitution, Powers and Procedure (Sections 19–22)

Of every institution created by the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987, the Lok Adalat is the one that touches the ordinary litigant most directly. It is the statutory machinery through which Gandhian conciliation was grafted onto the modern justice system: a forum that does not try a case but settles it, that issues no judgment but pronounces an award, and whose award the law deems a decree of a civil court against which no appeal lies. Chapter VI of the Act, comprising Sections 19 to 22, supplies the entire architecture — who constitutes a Lok Adalat, how cases reach it, what powers it wields while it sits, and what becomes of the dispute when the parties shake hands. This chapter dissects each of those four sections with the precision a judiciary or CLAT-PG aspirant needs, anchoring every proposition in the leading pronouncements of the Supreme Court, from State of Punjab v. Jalour Singh to P.T. Thomas v. Thomas Job.

Where Lok Adalats sit in the statutory scheme

The Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 pursues two intertwined objects: securing free legal aid to the weaker sections so that justice is not denied for want of means, and organising Lok Adalats so that the legal system promotes justice on a basis of equal opportunity. The first object is serviced by the network of authorities and committees you will have studied under the constitution of NALSA, SLSA, DLSA and TLSC; the second is the province of Chapter VI. The two objects are not watertight. The very authorities that disburse legal aid are the bodies empowered to organise Lok Adalats, so that the Act's conciliatory and welfare limbs are administered by a single institutional spine.

It is important at the outset to grasp that a Lok Adalat is not a court. It exercises no inherent judicial power, decides nothing on the merits, and binds no one who has not agreed to be bound. Its authority is borrowed wholly from the statute and from the consent of the disputants. The Supreme Court captured this character in State of Punjab v. Jalour Singh, (2008) 2 SCC 660, observing that when the Act speaks of a 'determination' and an 'award' by a Lok Adalat it does not contemplate an adjudicatory judicial determination at all, but a non-adjudicatory determination based on a compromise or settlement arrived at by the parties themselves. Understanding that single proposition unlocks the whole of Chapter VI.

Section 19 — organisation and composition of Lok Adalats

Section 19 is the constitutive provision. Sub-section (1) empowers every State Authority, District Authority, the Supreme Court Legal Services Committee, every High Court Legal Services Committee and every Taluk Legal Services Committee to organise Lok Adalats at such intervals and places and for exercising such jurisdiction and for such areas as it thinks fit. The discretion is deliberately broad: a Lok Adalat is not a permanent standing tribunal but an event that the organising authority convenes when and where it is useful, which is why the modern practice of periodic and national Lok Adalats fits comfortably within the section.

Sub-section (2) prescribes composition. Every Lok Adalat organised by an authority or committee shall consist of such number of serving or retired judicial officers and other persons of the area as may be specified by the organising body. The Act thus marries a judicial element with lay participation, but the qualifications and experience of the 'other persons' are not left at large — sub-section (3) directs that they shall be such as may be prescribed by the State Government in consultation with the Chief Justice of the High Court, or, for a Lok Adalat organised by the Supreme Court Committee, by the Central Government in consultation with the Chief Justice of India. Sub-section (4) confers jurisdiction on the Lok Adalat to determine and arrive at a compromise or settlement in two classes of matters: any case pending before, or any matter falling within the jurisdiction of and not brought before, a court for which the Lok Adalat is organised. Crucially, the proviso to sub-section (5) excludes any matter relating to an offence not compoundable under any law — a Lok Adalat cannot settle a non-compoundable criminal offence.

Two jurisdictional streams: pending cases and pre-litigation matters

Section 19(5) crystallises a distinction that recurs throughout Chapter VI. A Lok Adalat draws its caseload from two streams. The first is the pending case — litigation already instituted in a court within the territorial jurisdiction for which the Lok Adalat is organised. The second is the pre-litigation matter — a dispute that falls within the jurisdiction of such a court but has not yet been brought before it. The procedural gateway for each stream differs and is governed by Section 20, but the jurisdictional foundation is laid here.

The exclusion of non-compoundable offences marks the outer limit of subject-matter jurisdiction. Compoundable criminal cases, by contrast, are squarely within reach, and the Supreme Court in K.N. Govindan Kutty Menon v. C.D. Shaji, (2012) 2 SCC 51, confirmed that a complaint under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 referred by a Magistrate to a Lok Adalat and settled there yields an award that is, by force of the deeming provision, a decree of a civil court executable as such. The Court rejected the argument that a criminal-court reference could not metamorphose into a civil decree, holding that the statutory fiction in Section 21 admits of no such restriction. The practical reach of Lok Adalats is therefore considerably wider than the word 'civil' might suggest, embracing every compoundable matter that the parties are willing to compromise.

Section 20 — how a case reaches the Lok Adalat

Section 20 is the procedural heart of the chapter and repays close reading because examiners frequently test its consent requirements. Sub-section (1) governs pending cases. A court may refer a case to a Lok Adalat in two situations. Under clause (a), it may refer where the parties agree, or where one of the parties applies for reference and the court is prima facie satisfied that there are chances of settlement. Under clause (b), the court may, of its own motion, refer where it is satisfied that the matter is an appropriate one to be taken cognizance of by the Lok Adalat. The first proviso to sub-section (1) is a vital safeguard: no case shall be referred under clause (b) by the court except after giving a reasonable opportunity of being heard to the parties. Consent or, at minimum, a hearing thus precedes every reference.

Sub-section (2) governs the pre-litigation stream. Where no case is pending, the authority organising the Lok Adalat may, on receipt of an application from any one of the parties, refer the matter to the Lok Adalat for determination — but again only after giving a reasonable opportunity of being heard to the other party. The Act will not allow a dispute to be dragged before a Lok Adalat behind a party's back.

Section 20 continued — conduct of proceedings and what happens if settlement fails

Once a case or matter is before it, sub-section (3) commands the Lok Adalat to proceed to dispose of the case or matter and arrive at a compromise or settlement between the parties. Sub-section (4) supplies the standard of conduct: every Lok Adalat shall, while determining any reference before it, act with utmost expedition to arrive at a compromise or settlement and shall be guided by the principles of justice, equity, fair play and other legal principles. These are conciliatory virtues, not adjudicatory ones; the Lok Adalat persuades, it does not decide.

Sub-sections (5) to (7) answer the critical question of what happens when conciliation fails — and here lies a point candidates routinely miss. The file does not stay with the Lok Adalat. Under sub-section (5), where no award is made by the Lok Adalat on the ground that no compromise or settlement could be arrived at in a pending case, the record of the case shall be returned to the court from which the reference was received, and that court shall proceed to deal with the case from the stage which was reached before the reference. There is no res judicata, no prejudice; the abortive attempt at settlement is simply erased and the litigation resumes. For a pre-litigation matter, sub-section (6) directs the Lok Adalat to advise the parties to seek remedy in a court. Sub-section (7) reinforces the consensual ethos by requiring that the persons constituting the Lok Adalat shall act independently and impartially in arriving at the settlement. This return mechanism is precisely why a Lok Adalat that purports to impose its own figure has overstepped, as the next section explains.

The cardinal limit: no adjudicatory power (Jalour Singh)

The single most examined proposition about ordinary Lok Adalats is that they cannot decide a dispute; they can only record what the parties have agreed. The locus classicus is State of Punjab v. Jalour Singh, (2008) 2 SCC 660. The claimants, the husband and son of a woman killed when a Punjab Roadways bus struck her, were dissatisfied with the compensation fixed by the Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal. The High Court referred the appeal to its Lok Adalat, which unilaterally enhanced the compensation and added interest, while curiously permitting the parties to object within two months. The Supreme Court set the award aside.

Justice R.V. Raveendran, speaking for the Court, held that the making of an award is merely an administrative act of incorporating the terms of settlement or compromise agreed by the parties, in the presence of the Lok Adalat, into the form of an executable order under the signature and seal of the Lok Adalat. A Lok Adalat has no adjudicatory or judicial function; its role is exclusively conciliatory. If there is no compromise or settlement, the Lok Adalat cannot pass an award and the only course open to it is to return the matter to the referring court under Section 20(5). An order that unilaterally enhances compensation is not an award at all but a usurpation of adjudicatory power the Lok Adalat does not possess. Jalour Singh is therefore the bright line: consent in, award out; no consent, no award.

A settlement must be final, not tentative (Moideen Sevamandir)

If Jalour Singh teaches that there must be a settlement, B.P. Moideen Sevamandir v. A.M. Kutty Hassan, (2009) 2 SCC 198, teaches that the settlement must be a real and final one. A pending second appeal before the Kerala High Court was referred to the Lok Adalat organised by the High Court Legal Services Committee, before which the parties reached what was at best a tentative understanding. An award was nonetheless drawn up. The Supreme Court held that a tentative or conditional arrangement is not a concluded settlement and cannot support a valid award; an award presupposes a final, mutual and unconditional agreement that the parties intend to be bound by then and there.

The decision did more than dispose of the case. Recognising the recurring confusion in the working of Lok Adalats, the Court recommended that the National Legal Services Authority frame comprehensive guidelines for their effective and uniform functioning. Moideen Sevamandir thus pairs with Jalour Singh to fix the two preconditions of a good award: the agreement must exist, and it must be final. Both flow naturally from the conciliatory premise discussed in the effect of Lok Adalat awards chapter.

Section 21 — the award and its statutory force

Section 21 confers on the award its remarkable potency. Sub-section (1) provides that every award of a Lok Adalat shall be deemed to be a decree of a civil court or, as the case may be, an order of any other court, and where a compromise or settlement has been arrived at by a Lok Adalat in a case referred to it under Section 20(1), the court fee paid in such case shall be refunded in the manner provided under the Court Fees Act, 1870. The refund is a deliberate incentive: a litigant who settles loses nothing of the fee already spent and is positively encouraged to compromise.

Sub-section (2) attaches finality. It declares that every award made by a Lok Adalat shall be final and binding on all the parties to the dispute, and no appeal shall lie to any court against the award. The deeming fiction is therefore double-edged — it gives the award the executability of a decree while simultaneously stripping away the appellate remedies that ordinarily accompany a decree. An award is born final. This is what distinguishes a Lok Adalat settlement from an ordinary compromise decree under Order XXIII of the Code of Civil Procedure, which though similarly non-appealable on the compromise, is the product of a court's adjudicatory seal rather than a conciliator's.

Finality, execution and the narrow window for challenge (Thomas Job)

The leading authority on the finality of an award is P.T. Thomas v. Thomas Job, (2005) 6 SCC 478. A dispute referred to a Lok Adalat during the pendency of an appeal in the District Court was settled there and an award passed. When the award was later assailed, the Supreme Court held that an award of a Lok Adalat is as good as a decree of a court, is final and is not open to challenge by way of an appeal. In view of the element of finality expressly attached by Section 21(2), no appeal under Section 96 of the Code of Civil Procedure lies against such an award. The Court emphasised that the endeavour must be to give enforceability to the award rather than to defeat it on technical grounds.

Finality, however, is not the same as absolute immunity from judicial scrutiny. Read with Jalour Singh, the position is that while no appeal lies, an award may be challenged in the limited circumstance where it is shown that there was in truth no consent or settlement — for instance where the award is non-est because it records a compromise that never occurred or was procured by fraud. The remedy in such a case is the constitutional one under Articles 226 and 227, not a statutory appeal. An award validly founded on a genuine settlement, by contrast, is executable as a decree and ends the litigation conclusively, as elaborated in the dedicated chapter on the effect of Lok Adalat awards.

Section 22 — powers of the Lok Adalat while it sits

Section 22 equips the Lok Adalat with the procedural muscle it needs to conduct conciliation effectively, while leaving its essential conciliatory character untouched. Sub-section (1) provides that the Lok Adalat or Permanent Lok Adalat shall, for the purposes of holding any determination under the Act, have the same powers as are vested in a civil court under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 while trying a suit, in respect of the following matters: the summoning and enforcing the attendance of any witness and examining him on oath; the discovery and production of any document; the reception of evidence on affidavits; the requisitioning of any public record or document or copy thereof from any court or office; and such other matters as may be prescribed.

These borrowed powers are procedural, not adjudicatory. They allow the Lok Adalat to gather material and conduct an orderly process, but they do not convert it into a court trying the dispute on the merits — a Lok Adalat clothed with the power to summon witnesses still cannot decide the case against an unwilling party. Sub-section (2) frees the Lok Adalat from the rigidity of ordinary procedure by providing that, notwithstanding anything contained in the Code of Civil Procedure or the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, the Lok Adalat shall have the requisite powers to specify its own procedure for the determination of any dispute coming before it. The strict rules of evidence and procedure are thus relaxed in service of expeditious settlement.

Section 22(3) — proceedings are judicial proceedings

Sub-section (3) of Section 22 lends the proceedings a measure of solemnity and protection. It provides that all proceedings before a Lok Adalat shall be deemed to be judicial proceedings within the meaning of Sections 193, 219 and 228 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860, and that every Lok Adalat shall be deemed to be a civil court for the purpose of Section 195 and Chapter XXVI of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. The cross-reference to the penal provisions is significant: a person who gives false evidence (Section 193 IPC) or fabricates evidence (Section 192) in a Lok Adalat, or who insults or interrupts it (Section 228 IPC), exposes himself to criminal liability exactly as he would before a court.

The deeming of the Lok Adalat as a civil court for Section 195 and Chapter XXVI CrPC purposes means that prosecution for such offences against its proceedings must follow the procedural route prescribed for offences against the administration of justice in relation to a court. The provision thus protects the integrity of the conciliation process without altering the Lok Adalat's non-adjudicatory nature. It is a shield for the process, not a sword of jurisdiction.

Contrast with Permanent Lok Adalats for public utility services

The Lok Adalat of Sections 19 to 22 must be distinguished sharply from the Permanent Lok Adalat introduced by the Legal Services Authorities (Amendment) Act, 2002, which inserted Sections 22A to 22E. The two institutions share a name and a conciliatory aspiration but differ on the one point that matters most. An ordinary Lok Adalat, as Jalour Singh holds, has no adjudicatory power and must return the file if the parties do not settle. A Permanent Lok Adalat for public utility services may, where conciliation under Section 22C fails, decide the dispute on its merits provided the dispute does not relate to an offence and the pecuniary value does not exceed the prescribed limit.

The constitutional validity of this adjudicatory innovation was upheld in Bar Council of India v. Union of India, (2012) 8 SCC 243, where the challenge that Sections 22A to 22E were arbitrary and violative of Article 14 was rejected; Parliament, the Court held, may create effective dispute-settlement mechanisms for particular classes of disputes, and there is no constitutional right insisting that every dispute be adjudicated only by a regular court. The Supreme Court later clarified, in cases such as the 2022 line of authority on Section 22C, that conciliation before a Permanent Lok Adalat is a mandatory precondition and adjudication on merits may follow only after a genuine attempt at conciliation has failed. The mechanics of this distinct forum are covered fully in the chapter on Permanent Lok Adalats for public utility services.

Significance, advantages and exam pointers

The Lok Adalat embodies the constitutional promise of Article 39A, which the Act was enacted to fulfil, and which the introduction and constitutional mandate chapter traces in full. Its advantages are concrete: there is no court fee, and any fee already paid is refunded under Section 21(1); the procedure is flexible and free of the rigours of the Evidence Act; the award is final and immediately executable so that the dispute does not generate a second round of appeals; and the proceedings are speedy, often disposing of long-pending matters in a single sitting. For an overburdened docket, the Lok Adalat is a pressure valve that converts adversarial litigation into consensual closure.

For the examination, hold three propositions firmly. First, an ordinary Lok Adalat is purely conciliatory and has no power to adjudicate — Jalour Singh. Second, its award is deemed a decree, is final and binding, and carries no appeal — Section 21 read with Thomas Job. Third, where no settlement is reached, the matter returns to the referring court under Section 20(5) without prejudice. Layer onto these the executability of awards even in compoundable criminal references (Govindan Kutty Menon) and the sharp contrast with the adjudicatory Permanent Lok Adalat (Bar Council of India v. Union of India), and you have the complete map of Chapter VI.