IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA Civil Writ Jurisdiction Case No.20609 of 2011 Col. Braj Kishore Choudhary (Retd.)& Anr Versus The State Of Bihar & Ors ---------------------------------- 02. 28.11.2011 Heard the learned counsel for the petitioners. This application has been filed by the petitioners against the award by the Permanent Lok Adalat dated 29.08.2011. The learned counsel for the petitioners submitted that the property of this petitioner was included in the partition suit filed by the plaintiff of Partition Case No.222 of 2011. The petitioner’s grandfather has purchased a portion of the property and in fact, the petitioners are the owner of the property whereas the plaintiffs of that case before Permanent Lok Adalat practicing fraud obtained an award. In CWJC No.14426 of 2009(Meena Choudhary vs. Dr. Dilip Choudhary), a Division Bench of this Court in similarly situated case has held that powers of Lok Adalat are not co-extensive with that of civil courts who have full power to take evidence including oral evidence and also to exercise necessary powers under Section 151 of the Code of Civil Procedure. In that case also, the writ application was filed on the ground that the property of the writ petitioner was included in the partition suit and by playing fraud on the Permanent Lok Adalat, award was 2 obtained. The Division Bench observed that the petitioners will be entitled to invoke plenary jurisdiction of civil court to claim necessary relief on the ground of fraud or even on the grounds available to the petitioner no.1. As a proposition of law, it is well established that the person who was not a party to the proceeding will not be bound by any order passed therein unless he or she was impleaded through a representative like karta or an authorized agent who may in appropriate situations represent others. With this observation, the writ application was disposed of. Admittedly, in the present case, the defence of the petitioner is also the same i.e. his part of the property was partitioned by the respondents in the partition suit before Lok Adalat by suppressing facts and by playing fraud on the Permanent Lok Adalat. In my opinion, therefore, this case is entirely covered with the Division Bench decision as such; the petitioner may approach the civil court for the redressal of his grievance as observed by the Division Bench. If such proceeding is initiated before appropriate forum, the same shall be decided according to law. With this observation, this writ application is disposed of. Saurabh (Mungeshwar Sahoo,J.)