The judgment establishes the jurisdiction of the permanent Lok Adalat to adjudicate disputes relating to banking services and emphasizes the mandatory nature of the conciliation procedure before passing awards.

ORDER :

Cheekati Manavendranath Roy, J.

In this batch of writ petitions, the legal validity of the awards passed by the permanent Lok Adalat, are challenged in some writ petitions by the Krishna District Cooperative Central Bank Limited (for brevity “KDCC Bank”) and in other petitions by “Raithu Sadhikarika Samastha”. Therefore, all these writ petitions are heard together and they are being disposed of by this common order.

2. Heard learned counsel for the petitioners, learned Assistant Government Pleader for Finance appearing for 1st respondent, Sri S. Lakshminarayana Reddy, learned Standing Counsel for Andhra Pradesh State Legal Service Authority appearing for 3rd respondent and Sri K. Mohan Rami Reddy, learned counsel appearing for 4th respondent in the writ petitions filed by KDCC Bank and appearing for the writ petitioners filed by “Raithu Sadhikarika Samastha”, learned Government Pleader for Agriculture for 2nd respondent and none appeared for 5th respondent.

3. At the time of hearing, both the learned counsel for petitioners and learned counsel for respondents would submit that these are all covered matters in view of the earlier common order passed by this Court in W.P.No.1252 of 2020 and batch, whereby this Court has dismissed the writ petitions.

4. The claimants in all the pre-litigation cases filed before the permanent Lok Adalat, are farmers and agriculturists by profession and they are eking out their livelihood by doing cultivation. All of them have availed crop loans / gold loans for the purpose of their agriculture from KDCC Bank.

5. While so, the Government has issued G.O.Ms.No.174, Finance (I.F) Department, dated 14.08.2014 waiving all the crop loans and gold loans availed by the farmers. For the purpose of implementing the said G.O. and to enable the farmers to avail the benefit of the said G.O., a Nodal Agency known as “Raithu Sadhikarika Samastha” was created by the State Government of Andhra Pradesh. The said Raithu Sadhikarika Samastha has to collect the data from all the concerned banks in the State and ascertain whether the gold loans and crop loans are availed for agriculture purpose or not and whether they are genuine or not and also to ascertain whether they are entitled for waiver of the said loans or not.

6. As the said gold loans and crop loans of the farmers are not waived in terms of the aforesaid G.O., the farmers, who felt aggrieved in this regard, have approached the permanent Lok Adalat by way of filing applications for redressal of their grievance seeking direction to the KDCC Bank to implement the said G.O.

7. After complying with the procedure contemplated under law, as the reconciliation efforts made did not fructify, the permanent Lok Adalat proceeded to adjudicate the dispute and eventually passed the impugned orders directing the KDCC Bank to implement the said G.O. and to waive the crop loans and gold loans and further directed the KDCC Bank to refund the amount to the farmers.

8. Aggrieved by the impugned awards that were passed, the KDCC Bank and the Raithu Sadhikarika Samastha have filed separate writ petitions, which are part of this batch, challenging the said awards passed by the permanent Lok Adalat.

9. The legal validity of the awards passed by the permanent Lok Adalat, are challenged chiefly on two grounds. Firstly, it is contended that banking services are not included in the public utility service under Section 22A of the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 (for short “the Act”) and as such, the permanent Lok Adalat has no jurisdiction to pass any such awards against the KDCC Bank and it is not competent to pass the said awards under the Act. Secondly, it is contended that it is mandatory on the part of the permanent Lok Adalat under Section 22C (7) and (8) to make an effort for conciliation before proceeding with adjudication of the dispute and as no such effort for conciliation is made which is mandatory in nature, that the awards are vitiated for non-compliance of the said mand