Award of the Lok Adalat is to be treated as a decree of the civil court. Which is the civil court to execute decree is the question to be considered in this case. The revision petitioner is the defendant in O.S.1469/98 on the file of the Principal Munsiff Court, Thrissur. Respondent is the plaintiff. The suit pertains to partition. Reference was made under S.20 of the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 and the Lok Adalat organized by the Taluk Legal Services Authority, Thrissur settled, the matter and passed an award dated 5.11.1999. The petitioner undertook to pay an amount of Rs.2,60,000/- within a period of six months from the date of the award with 12% interest. Since the petitioner failed to pay the amount in time, the respondent took up the matter in execution before the Munsiff Court, Thrissur. In the process, order dated 20.3.2004 in E.P.1394/01 in O.S.1469/98 was passed for proclamation and sale of the attached property.

2. The main contention taken by the learned counsel appearing for the petitioner is that the decree amount being Rs.2,60,000/‑ with interest, the Munsiff Court, Thrissur lacked pecuniary jurisdiction to entertain the execution petition. Yet another contention is that it is not necessary to proceed with the whole extent of property since the decree can be satisfied by proceeding against part of the property.

3. S.6 of the Civil Procedure Code deals with the pecuniary jurisdiction which reads as follows: ‑

"6. Pecuniary jurisdiction: Save in so far as is otherwise expressly provided, nothing herein contained shall operate to give any Court jurisdiction over suits the amount or value of the subject‑matter of which exceeds the pecuniary limits, (if any) of its ordinary jurisdiction, "S.38 of the Code provides that "A decree may be executed either by the Court which passed it, or by the Court to which it is sent for execution." S.39 deals with the transfer of the decree to a court of competent jurisdiction. S.39(3) reads as follows :

"(3) For the purposes of this section, a Court shall be deemed to be a Court of competent jurisdiction if, at the time of making the application for the transfer of decree to it. Such Court would have jurisdiction to try the suit in which such decree was passed," At, the outset, it has to be noticed that the valuation for the purpose of court fee as shown in the plaint is Rs.85,000/‑ and hence there cannot be any dispute that the Munsiff Court has pecuniary jurisdiction to try the suit. It is also to be noted that the jurisdiction is to be taken note of only for the purpose of adjudication and not for execution. It is the contention of the petitioner that once a matter is referred to Lok Adalat, and Lok Adalat passes an award, it has to be deemed to be a decree of civil court or an order of‑any other court, as the case may be. It is submitted that though the reference is made by the Munsiff Court, once the Lok Adalat passes the award for payment of an amount of Rs.2,60,000/‑ with interest, for the purposes of jurisdiction as far as execution of the decree is concerned, it has to be treated as a decree passed by the Subordinate Judges Court.

4. S.20 of the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 deals with cognizance of cases by Lok Adalat, which reads as follows:-

20. Cognizance of cases by Lok Adalats.­

(1) Where in any case referred to in clause (i) of sub‑s. (5) of S.19‑-­

(i)(a) the parties thereof agree; or

(b) one of the parties thereof makes an application to the court, for referring the case to the Lok Adalat for settlement and if such court is prima facie satisfied that there are chances of such settlement; or

(ii) the court is satisfied that the matter is an appropriate one to be taken cognizance of by the Lok Adalat, the court shall refer the case to the Lok Adalat:

Provided that no case shall be referred to the Lok Adalat under sub‑clause (b) of clause

(i) or clause (ii) by such court except after giving a reasonable opportunity of being heard t