Context:

As per the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA), as many as 11,077 undertrials have been released from prisons nationwide as part of the mission to decongest jails following the COVID-19 pandemic.

About:

• The National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) has been constituted under the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 to provide free Legal Services to the weaker sections of the society.
• Public awareness, equal opportunity, and deliverable justice are the cornerstones on which the edifice of NALSA is based.
• The principal objective of NALSA is:
  • 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
  • To organize Lok Adalats for amicable settlement of disputes
• Apart from the abovementioned, functions of NALSA include spreading legal literacy and awareness, undertaking social justice litigations, etc.

Lok Adalat

• Lok Adalat is one of the alternative dispute redressal mechanisms, it is a forum where disputes/ cases pending in the court of law or at the pre-litigation stage are settled/ compromised amicably.
• Lok Adalats have been given statutory status under the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987
• The award (decision) made by the Lok Adalats is deemed to be a decree of a civil court and is final and binding on all parties and no appeal against such an award lies before any court of law.
• If the parties are not satisfied with the award of the Lok Adalat though there is no provision for an appeal against such an award, but they are free to initiate litigation by approaching the court of appropriate jurisdiction by filing a case by following the required procedure, in the exercise of their right to litigate.
• Mobile Lok Adalats are also organized in various parts of the country which travel from one location to another to resolve disputes in order to facilitate the resolution of disputes through this mechanism.