The district administration will start a pre-litigation counselling forum to sort out civil disputes from people. The forum, consisting of an officer each from the Revenue Department, Municipal Corporation and the Police Departments, is being set up and will sit in Room No. 15, on the premises of Swarna Bharathi Indoor Stadium on all Wednesdays and Fridays, starting from coming week.
Police Commissioner Manish Kumar Sinha said that many people come to the police stations with civil disputes and they are turned down, as they are civil in nature. Just to lodge a police complaint many return by adding a criminal colour to it, which is wrong. To avoid this problem, the forum has been created, he said.
The officers nominated for the forum are Special Deputy Collector, Ch. Rangaiah, City planner, GVMC, Prabhakar, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Dwaraka Sub-Division, R.V.S.N. Murthy. The complaints received in this forum can be divided into various categories — family disputes, disputes with neighbours/other people, moneylending like disputes relating to chit funds, landlord/tenant disputes, disputes relating to nuisance/other issues, land disputes and others. The officials said that people, who wish to avail the services of the forum, can approach the respective police stations from October 26.
“Parties to the disputes shall be summoned and counselled and the resultant compromise, if any, shall be produced before the Lok Adalat on the same day for passing a final award under Section 22 (c) of the Legal Services Authority Act 1987,” the officials added.
