NEW DELHI: A unique experiment to take justice to the doorstep of the poor is all set to be launched on Friday, coinciding with the 140th birth anniversary of Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi. More than 5,000 Gram Nyayalays (village courts), aimed at providing inexpensive justice, set up under the provisions of the Gram Nyayalays Act, 2008, will start functioning. It is mobile court that exercises powers of both the criminal and civil courts. The Gram Nyayalays Act has been enacted to establish Gram Nyayalays (village courts) that will try criminal cases, civil suits, claims or disputes, for providing access to justice to citizens at their doorstep. It will provide inexpensive justice to people in rural areas.
It will be a court of the Judicial Magistrate of the First Class and its presiding officer will be appointed by the state government in consultation with state high courts. They will follow summary procedure in criminal trial and exercise powers of a civil court with certain modifications and follow the special procedure as provided in the Act.
The village court will be established for every panchayat at the intermediate or block level in a district or where there is no panchayat at the intermediate level in any state, for a group of contiguous panchayats. The presiding officers in these courts are strictly judicial officers and will draw the same salary and derive the same powers as the first class magistrates working under high courts.
The day also marks the Golden Jubilee of the Panchayati Raj in India. India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had inaugurated Panchayati Raj in India at Naguar in Rajasthan on Oct. 2, 1959. To commemorate the golden jubilee, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi will address the Panchayat Raj Convention along with Rural Development & Panchayati Raj Minister C P Joshi. Elected representatives for the panchayats, who served for more than 25 years from all the states union territories, will be honored during the Panchayat Raj Convention at the Vigyan Bhavan in the capital on Friday. A function at Nagaur in Rajasthan has also been organized later in the evening to mark the occasion.
