New Delhi, (Samajweekly) Aiming to address pendency of 6,07,996 cases in consumer courts across the country, a National Lok Adalat will be held on November 12, an official statement said on Thursday.
Uttar Pradesh (28,318 cases pending), Maharashtra (18,093), Delhi (15,450), Madhya Pradesh (10,319), and Karnataka (9,615) are some of the states with the highest number of pending cases.
Through data analytics, sector-wise distribution of pendency has been identified such as banking with a total number of 71,379 pending cases, insurance with 168,827, e-commerce with 1,247, electricity with 33,919, railways with 2,316, etc, and efforts are being made towards the settlement of such consumer cases on priority.
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 the Lok Adalat. Regular monitoring of the making of the list is done by the department.
To have maximum outreach and benefit consumers, the Consumer Affairs Department is reaching out to consumers, companies, and organisations through SMS and emails. it has the phone numbers and emails of 3 lakh parties whose cases are pending before the commissions, and held video conferencing with the Consumer Commissions which have 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.
Officials said that the department 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 the NALSA.
