The Karnataka High Court set aside a Lok Adalat award for lacking signatures of the actual parties, holding counsel signatures insufficient. It allowed a woman and her son’s plea challenging reduction of compensation in a motor accident claim dispute.
The Karnataka High Court recently annulled a Lok Adalat award because it was signed only by the parties’ counsel and not by the parties themselves.
Justice M Nagaprasanna heard a petition filed by a woman and her son challenging the validity of a Lok Adalat award that had reduced the compensation they were awarded for a motor accident.
The petitioners contended that the award had been passed without their knowledge, alleging that their former lawyer had entered into a settlement with the insurer without their consent. They sought quashing of the Lok Adalat award on that basis.
The Court accepted their plea, referring to precedents which require that parties to a dispute personally sign Lok Adalat awards to demonstrate that the settlement was voluntary.
Those authorities hold that the signature of a party’s lawyer alone will not make the award binding. Relying on this line of decisions, the High Court set aside the Lok Adalat award in the present case.
The Court ordered,
“It is clear from the joint memo that the claimants (petitioners) have not affixed their signatures. It is only the Advocates of both sides and the representative of the Insurance Company who have affixed their signatures … Since the claimants have not signed the joint memo, I deem it appropriate to set aside the award of the Lok Adalat and restore the appeal to its file to be heard on its merits,”
The dispute involved a widow and the son of a daily-wage earner who died in a collision with a car. A Motor Accident Claims Tribunal had initially awarded Rs 9,18,600 in compensation for the fatal accident. The insurer appealed that decision in 2014.
While the appeal was pending, the matter was referred to a Lok Adalat, which issued an award reducing the final compensation to approximately Rs 7,82,000. That Lok Adalat award bore the signature of the advocate for the widow and son, but not theirs.
Justice Nagaprasanna reiterated that a Lok Adalat award becomes binding only when the parties themselves have signed it.
Accordingly, the Court annulled the 2019 Lok Adalat award under challenge and directed that the 2014 appeal from which the award arose be restored for fresh adjudication.
Case Title: Shaila & Ors v ICICI Lombard GIC Ltd & Ors
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