As per the calendar of the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA), the Manipur State Legal Services Authority in association with High Court Legal Services Committee and District Legal Services Authorities organised the last National Lok Adalat for 2021 on December 11 at various places across the state, both in virtual and physical modes.

The National Lok Adalat for Imphal East and West districts was jointly organised by Manipur State Legal Services Authority in association with Imphal East and Imphal West District Legal Services Authorities at ADR Building, Lamphel Court Complex. National Lok Adalat was also held at Bishnupur, Thoubal, Ukhrul, Senapati, Churachandpur, Chandel districts and in the High Court of Manipur.

The Lok Adalat was conducted in offline mode for the pending court cases. For pre-litigation matters relating to the bank, telephone and others, it was conducted in online mode through video conferencing. It is to be noted that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the conventional physical Lok Adalats are now shifted to online Lok Adalats in which Lok Adalat was conducted in virtual mode by using simple video conferencing applications.

In the National Lok Adalat for Imphal East and Imphal West district, four benches were constituted. The first bench comprised M Manojkumar Singh, Retired District and Sessions Judge as chairman; Ch Momon Singh, advocate and Kh Iboyaima, advocate as members. The second bench comprised N Sonykumar, Civil Judge, Senior Division, Imphal West as chairperson and Ch Bimolchandra, advocate as a member. The third bench comprised K Nirojit, Civil Judge, Senior Division, Imphal East as chairman and I Lenibala, advocate as a member. The fourth bench comprised Md Arshad Saeed Shah, secretary, Imphal East District Legal Services Authority as chairperson and Km B Supriya Devi, advocate as a member.

The High Court of Manipur Justice Kh Nobin Singh, the Executive Chairman of Manipur State Legal Services Authority visited the National Lok Adalat held at ADR building, Lamphel Court Complex.
Justice Nobin, while interacting with media, opined that the number of pending cases in the courts has been increasing day by day and it has become a big challenge for the Courts to dispose of the cases on time due to lack of manpower and infrastructures. In such challenging times, Lok Adalat has a very important role to play in the disposal of pending cases in the courts by way of negotiation and amicable settlement. Thus, all the citizens should be made aware of Lok Adalat and that cases can be settled through this mechanism without spending much time and money, Nobin said.