Icici Lombard General Insurance ... vs Permanent Lok Adalat And Another
2023 Latest Caselaw 4767 ALL

HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD
 
 

?Court No. - 34
 
Case :- WRIT - C No. - 2805 of 2023
 

 
Petitioner :- Icici Lombard General Insurance Co. Ltd.
 
Respondent :- Permanent Lok Adalat And Another
 
Counsel for Petitioner :- Pawan Kumar Singh
 
Counsel for Respondent :- Ajay Kumar Chaurasia
 

 
Hon'ble Saurabh Shyam Shamshery,J.

Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that this matter is squarely covered by a judgment of this Court in Writ-C No. 28999 of 2013 (Nitin Kumar vs. Oriental Insurance Co. Ltd. and others, decided on 16.12.2021) as admittedly the Permanent Lok Adalat has not complied with the mandatory provisions of Section 22 (C) of Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987.

The Supreme Court in Canara Bank vs. G.S. Jayarama (2022) 7 SCC 776 and in para 44 Court held as under:

"44. At the same time, the Division Bench in its impugned judgement also noted that the Permanent Lok Adalat failed to follow the mandatory conciliation proceedings in the present case. This observation is correct since the award of the Permanent Lok Adalat does not indicate any attempt made by it to propose terms of settlement to the parties and their rejection. It states that once the respondent and his guarantor did not appear, it adjudicated the dispute on merits in favour of the respondent. For the reasons mentioned earlier in this judgment, the Permanent Lok Adalat could not have done so. Therefore, on this point only, we uphold the final judgment of the Division Bench setting aside the award dated 19 November 2014 of the Permanent Lok Adalat.?"

In view of above discussion, impugned order dated 29.6.2022 is set-aside and the matter is remanded back to Prescribed Authority to decide afresh after complying with mandatory provisions of conciliation as held in Canara Bank (supra).

With the aforesaid observation/direction, this writ petition is disposed of.

Learned counsel for parties undertakes that they will appear on 27.2.2023 and thereafter the Permanent Lok Adalat will conclude the proceedings.

Order Date :- 13.2.2023

SB