E-courts off to a flying start

Mon, Feb 9 12:20 AM

The E-Mega Lok Adalats in Delhi had a good start on Sunday with as many as 12,000 pending cheque bounce cases being disposed off. People thronged at the district courts for hearing of the cases under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act.

Inaugurating the online Lok Adalat at Patiala House Courts, Justice Arijit Pasayat of the Supreme Court said: "More than 6 lakh cheque bounce cases are pending in Delhi courts. E-Lok Adalat is one of the unique steps of the Judiciary to clear the pending cases without any hassles to the litigants.

"ICICI Bank has provided a list of more than 100,000 cases for resolution through Lok Adalat, which were pending in various court complexes in Delhi. Nearly 40,000 customers contacted the bank's call centre regarding pending cases.

Hundred lok adalats were made functional in all the five district court complexes. In every district court, 10 facilitation centres were set up with complete database connected with the main server of the bank to access details of the customers.

With the online database, a litigant could visit the nearest court complex to resolve the dispute. "I never thought that settling my credit card bill would be so easy.

The entire data is on the wire and bank officials were very cooperative," said Rajat Mehta, a resident of Hauz Khas. Bank officials were also deputed in every district court with database of customers.

Separate counters were set up for senior citizens and disabled people, including a counter for women. "With no documents or case files, the concept is really good.

I had to stand in queue a bit long, but my long standing dispute was cleared in a few minutes," said Prashant Gaur, a shopkeeper in Khan Market. Chief Justice of Delhi High Court A. P. Shah said, "It is one of the rarest opportunities to function without moving files. Let's see how this concept evolves in the near future.".

Sumit Saxe

http://in.news.yahoo.com/32/20090209/1053/tnl-e-courts-off-to-a-flying-start.html