Gujarat High Court: In a criminal appeal against the Trial Court’s judgment and order, whereby the complaint against the accused for cheque bounce was dismissed by the Magistrate while sitting in a Lok Adalat jurisdiction, M.K Thakker, J. allowed the appeal and set aside the impugned decision and restored the matter. The Court directed the Trial Court to dispose of the matter as expeditiously possible, preferably within eight months from the date of this order, after providing reasonable opportunity to the parties to adduce their evidence, as the same has been pending since 2013.
The complainant’s case was that Rs.10,00,000/- was lent to the accused. The cheque for repayment issued in favour of the complainant was dishonoured with an endorsement of “funds insufficient”. The complaint was filed before the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Rajkot and summons were issued to the accused. The Trial Court dismissed the complaint while sitting in a Lok Adalat jurisdiction recording the absence of the complainant which is the subject matter of challenge before this Court.
On perusal of the records and proceedings, the Court noted that on filing of the criminal case, summons was issued by the Trial Court on 03-06-2015. Thereafter, the accused appeared before the Trial Court and his plea came to be recorded on 30-06-2015. Thereafter, the case was posted for the evidence of the complainant and on certain occasions absence of the complainant was recorded, however, it transpired that there was no continuous absence of the complainant, and his advocate appeared present on almost every occasion. Thereafter, it was referred to the Lok Adalat by the Trial Court, however, no notice was issued by the Trial Court while referring the matter to Lok Adalat.
The Court referred to Sections 19, 20 and 21 of the Legal Service Authority Act, 1987. The Court also referred to a set of decisions, wherein it was held that in absence of any settlement or compromise between the parties, the only option available to the Member of the Lok Adalat was to return the papers to the Court concerned for disposal in accordance with law and the Lok Adalat did not have the jurisdiction to adjudicate the matter on merits.
Further, the Court relied on Estate Officer v. H.V. Mankotia, (2022) 12 SCC 609 wherein, it was laid down that, the jurisdiction of the Lok Adalat would be to determine and to arrive at a compromise or a settlement between the parties to a dispute and once the settlement/compromise fails and no compromise or settlement could be arrived at between the parties, the Lok Adalat has to return the case to the Court from which the reference has been received for disposal in accordance with law and in any case, the Lok Adalat has no jurisdiction at all to decide the matter on merits once it is found that compromise or settlement could not be arrived at between the parties.
Hence, the Court reiterated that matters are referred to the Lok Adalat for disposal through settlement or compromise between the parties, however, in the event when compromise is not arrived, then it should be referred to the Court as provided under Section 20(5) of the Legal Service Authority Act, for disposal in accordance with law. The work of Lok Adalat is only to dispose of the case where the settlement has arrived.
In the matter at hand, the Court said that there was no settlement arrived between the parties and the matter was disposed of while sitting in Lok Adalat by exercising the power under Section 256 of CrPC, hence, the impugned order was without jurisdiction and therefore, the same was set aside and the criminal case was required to be restored to its original file for deciding the same on its merits.
[Satishbhai Shantilal Mehta v. State of Gujarat, 2024 SCC OnLine Guj 3507, decided on: 12-09-2024]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For the appellant: Advocate Devansh Kakkad
For the respondent: Advocate Monarch Pandya; Advocate PM Dave; APP M.H. Bhatt
