IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD (Special Original Jurisdiction) TUESDAY, THE THIRTIETH DAY OF DECEMBER TWO THOUSAND AND EIGHT PRESENT THE HON'BLE MR JUSTICE GHULAM MOHAMMED and THE HON'BLE MR JUSTICE B.SESHASAYANA REDDY WRIT PETITION NO : 28677 of 2008 Between: Yerra Satyanarayana S/o. Late Tata Rao R/o. D.o 28-1-42/1, Besides Swathi Tiffins Devi Chowk, Rajahmundry, East Godavari District. ..... PETITIONER AND V.V. Raghava Reddy S/o. Basava Raju, Hindu R/o. D.No. 9-14-21, Chandra Choultry Street, Rajahmundry, East Godavari District. .....RESPONDENT Petition under Article 226 of the constitution of India praying that in the circumstances stated in the Affidavit filed herein the High Court will be pleased to issue a writ order or direction more particularly one in the nature of the writ of Mandamus declaring the order of the Lok Adalat, Rajahmundry, dt.23-9-2008 as arbitrary illegal, unjust and opposed to all cannons of law and justice and consequently set aside the award dt. 22-10-2007 passed by the Lok Adalat, Rajahmundry in PLC No. 378 of 2007. Counsel for the Petitioner: MR.T.S.ANAND Counsel for the Respondent No.: . The Court made the following : ORDER: (per the Hon’ble Mr.Justice Ghulam Mohammed) This writ petition is filed seeking a mandamus to declare the order of the Lok Adalat, Rajahmundry, dated 23-09-2008 as arbitrary illegal, unjust and opposed to all cannons of law and justice, and consequently, to set aside the award dated 22-10-2007 passed by the Lok Adalat, Rajahmundry in PLC No. 378 of 2007. The petitioner is a tenant and the respondent is the owner of the shop. Both the parties have appeared before the Lok Adalat, represented by their respective counsel, and filed a compromise memo. The said compromise was taken into account and accordingly the award was passed. The award contemplates that the tenant should vacate the premises by 31-05-2008 and he also agreed to pay arrears of rent from March, 2007 on or before 31-12-2007. It was also agreed by the respondent that an amount of Rs.1,15,000/- will be paid to the petitioner on or before 31-05-2008 with interest. When both the parties have represented by their counsel and affixed their signatures, the Lok Adalat passed the award. Learned counsel for the petitioner contended that this award is a prelitigation conciliation and settlement, and he has drawn our attention to Section 22-A of the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 (for brevity ‘the Act’) which deals with public utility service. Section 22C of the Act deals with cognizance of cases by permanent Lok Adalat which reads as follows: “22C Cognizance of cases by Permanent Lok Adalat. (1) Any party to a dispute may, before the dispute is brought before any court, make an application to the Permanent Lok Adalat for the settlement of dispute: Provided that the Permanent Lok Adalat shall not have jurisdiction in respect of any matter relating to an offence not compoundable under any law: Provided further that the Permanent Lok Adalat shall also not have jurisdiction in the matter where the value of the property in dispute exceeds ten lakh rupees: Provided also that the Central Government, may, by notification, increase the limit of ten lakh rupees specified in the second proviso in consultation with the Central Authority. (2) After an application is made under sub-sec. (1) to the Permanent Lok Adalat, no party to that application shall invoke jurisdiction of any court in the same dispute. (3) Where an application is made to a Permanent Lok Adalat under sub-sec. (1), it (a) shall direct each party to the application to file before it a written statement, stating therein the facts and nature of dispute under the application, points or issues in such dispute and grounds relied in support of, or in opposition to such, points or issues, as the case may be, and such party may supplement such statement with any document and other evidence which such party deems appropriate in proof of such facts and grounds and shall send a copy of such statement together with a copy of such document and other evidence, if any, to each of the parties to the application; (b) may require any party to the application to file additional statement before it at any stage of the conciliation proceedings; (c) shall communicate any document or statement received by it from any party to the application to the other party, to enable such other party to present reply thereto. (4) When statement, additional statement and reply, if any, have been filed under sub-sec. (3), to the satisfaction of the Permanent Lok Adalat, it shall conduct conciliation proceedings between the parties to the application in such manner as it thinks appropriate taking into account the circumstances of the dispute. (5) The Permanent Lok Adalat shall, during conduct of conciliation proceedings under sub- sec. (4), assist the parties in their attempt to reach an amicable settlement of the dispute in an independent and impartial manner. (6) It shall be the duty of every party to the application to cooperate in good faith with the Permanent Lok Adalat in conciliation of the dispute relating to the application and to comply with the direction of the Permanent Lok Adalat to produce evidence and other related documents before it. (7) When a Permanent Lok Adalat, in the aforesaid conciliation proceedings, is of opinion that there exist elements of settlement in such proceedings which may be acceptable to the parties, it may formulate the terms of a possible settlement of the dispute and give to the parties concerned for their observations and in case the parties reach at an agreement on the settlement of the dispute, they shall sign the settlement agreement and the Permanent Lok Adalat shall pass an award in terms thereof and furnish a copy of the same to each of the parties concerned. (8) Where the parties fail to reach at an agreement under sub-sec. (7), the Permanent Lok Adalat shall, if the dispute does not relate to any offence, decide the dispute.” It is his contention that this is a prelitigation conciliation and settlement and it only relates to the public utility services since the dispute is between the tenant and the landlord, it stands outside scope of prelitigation and conciliation settlement. The fraud has been exerted by the landlord and the petitioner having not aware of this act has affixed his signatures and the Lok Adalat has no jurisdiction to entertain the matter between the tenant and landlord. We have examined the position under Section 22C of the Act. When once the petitioner appeared before the Lok Adalat and affixed his signatures represented by his counsel, he cannot turn around and say that the award was vitiated by fraud. Even otherwise, when the time was granted to vacate the premises on or before 31-05-2008, he has not vacated and now the writ petition is filed after a lapse of seven months. In the circumstances, we are not inclined to entertain the writ petition. Accordingly, the writ petition is dismissed. However, having regard to the facts and circumstances of the case, the time is extended to vacate the premises by four weeks from today. No order as to costs. ____________________ GHULAM MOHAMMED, J ______________________ B.SESHASAYANA REDDY, J 30th December, 2008 SKM