Kolkata: The National Lok Adalat was held in Bengal on Saturday and 443 benches were set up across the state including four benches at Calcutta High Court. Justice IP Mukerji, executive chairman of West Bengal State Legal Services Authority (WBSLSA) witnessed the functioning of the Lok Adalats at the HC.
Dev Kumar Sukul, member-secretary of WBSLSA said, “Maximum benches operated in South 24 Parganas as there were 52 benches.In Alipore court complex there were 32 benches and Sealdah and Baruipur both had six benches. While in North 24 Parganas there were 50 benches and Kolkata had 42 benches. Nadia had 27 benches, Howrah had 26 and Hooghly had 25.” Sukul added in Barasat there were two HIV positive individuals and a transgender person who acted as bench members.
In Calcutta HC, Retired HC judge Justice Subrata Talukdar chaired a bench, while three other benches were headed by Justice Ajoy Kumar Mukherjee, Justice Raja Basu Chowdhury and Justice Supratim Bhattacharya following the advice of Justice Harish Tandon, chairman, Calcutta High Court legal services committee. These four benches took up 124 cases and 97 cases were disposed of.