Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution has announced that National Lok Adalat will be held across the country on 12 November. National Lok Adalat is one of the alternate dispute redressal mechanisms. It is a forum where disputes/cases pending in the courts/commissions are settled/ compromised amicably.

National Lok Adalats are held at regular intervals where on a single day Lok Adalats are held throughout the country, in all the courts right from the Supreme Court to the District level wherein cases are disposed of in huge numbers.

National Legal Service Authority (NALSA) along with other Legal Service institutions conducts Lok Adalats.

There are about 6, 07,996 consumer cases pending in the country. In National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) there are about 22,250 numbers of cases pending. The major states have over 10,000 cases each: Uttar Pradesh has 28,318 cases pending, Maharashtra has 18,093 pending cases and Delhi has 15,450 pending cases.

The ministry has stated that groundwork for the 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 Lok Adalat.

To have maximum outreach and benefit consumers, the department of consumer affairs is reaching out to consumers, companies, and organizations through SMS and emails. Department has the phone numbers and emails of 3 lakh parties whose cases are pending before the commissions. The Department has done a Video Conferencing with the Consumer Commissions which has 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.