Invalid Lok Adalat Award due to procedural flaws and failure to comply with registration requirements under relevant statutes.

ORDER :

Moushumi Bhattacharya, J.

1. The petitioners seek a declaration that an un-dated Lok Adalat Award passed in O.S.No.674 of 2020 on the file of the Mandal Legal Services Committee: Additional Junior Civil Judge, Malkajgiri, Medchal- Malkajgiri District, is illegal, violates the principles of natural justice and is contrary to the provisions of The Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 (‘the 1987 Act’).

2. The impugned Award was passed in a Suit filed by the respondent No.4 before the I Additional Junior Civil Judge-cum-I Additional Metropolitan Magistrate at Kushaiguda, Medchal-Malkajgiri District (‘Trial Court’) for partition and separate possession. The petitioner No.1 was the defendant No.3; the petitioner No.2 was the defendant No.4 in the said Suit filed by the respondent No.4. The respondent No.5 was the defendant No.1; the respondent No.6 was the defendant No.2 in the said Suit.

3. The petitioner Nos.1, 2 and the respondent Nos.4 and 6 are sisters and brothers and children of the respondent No.5. The respondent No.4 filed the Suit before the Trial Court for partition and separate possession against the respondent Nos.5 and 6 (defendant Nos.1 and 2) and the petitioner Nos.1 and 2 (defendant Nos.3 and 4). As stated above, the defendants in the said Suit were the mother and the three other siblings of the respondent No.4/plaintiff. According to the respondent No.4, the Suit was settled between the parties culminating in the impugned Award recording, inter alia, that the plaintiff and the defendants have resolved their disputes and concludes the following:

(i) That all the defendants have mutually agreed to give-up their respective 1/5th share of land/Ac.02-19 gts. of land per defendant in the suit schedule property in favour of the plaintiff.

(ii) The Award further records that the plaintiff had agreed to pay an amount of Rs.20,30,000/- (Rupees Twenty Lakhs Thirty Thousand Only) to each of the defendant and the same has been paid to the said defendants and the same was acknowledged in the Registered Special Power of Attorneys.

(iii) That all the defendants have already signed a Release Deed in favour of the plaintiff relinquishing their respective shares in the schedule property.

The impugned Award is an un-dated Award.

4. The petitioners, i.e., the two sisters of the respondent No.4/plaintiff, have challenged the impugned Lok Adalat Award on the ground of the Suit being filed against the petitioners without service of notice to them.

5. Learned counsel appearing for the petitioners submits that the parties entered into a Registered Partition Deed on 28.12.2020 and that the respondent No.4 took care of all the documentation by obtaining the signatures of the petitioners on various documents/blank papers/blank non-judicial stamp papers etc. on the premise that the signatures are required for completing the partition and mutation of the schedule property. Counsel submits that the petitioner No.2 left India on 31.12.2020 after signing the documents on the bona fide belief that the Partition Deed was executed in respect of all the properties except the suit schedule property and that the petitioner No.1 only came to know on 29.01.2024 that the respondent Nos.4-6 had undertaken the development activities on the subject property. Counsel submits that the petitioners immediately tried to contact the respondent No.5 (their mother) as well as the respondent No.6 (their brother)/the defendant No.2 in the Suit but could not get any answers from them. The petitioners hence decided to take steps for filing a Partition Suit and accordingly the petitioner No.2 had sent a power of attorney authorizing the petitioner No.1 for t