The Supreme Court on August 19 set aside Lok Adalat awards in a land acquisition dispute, ruling that a settlement reached without bringing all affected parties on record cannot be sustained. The court held that unanimous consent of all parties is a mandatory precondition for a valid Lok Adalat award under the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987. Without that consent, the award carries no legal force and must be annulled.

Lok Adalats are statutory dispute-resolution forums established under the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987. Section 20(1) allows cases to be referred to a Lok Adalat by court order, agreement of parties, or on application. The critical constitutional and statutory condition is that any award must be based on a conciliation arrived at by mutual agreement among all parties — not merely some of them.

Once a valid award is passed, Section 21 makes it a decree of a civil court, executable as such, and — crucially — it is final and non-appealable. This finality is the very feature that makes Lok Adalat awards efficient, but it also demands strict compliance with the consent precondition.

The Supreme Court's August 2025 ruling reinforces that consent is not a procedural formality but a jurisdictional prerequisite. Where one or more affected parties were not made parties to the settlement, the Lok Adalat lacks the foundation to pass a binding award. Setting it aside protects the Article 21 and Article 300A rights of those excluded parties, who would otherwise lose property or entitlements without being heard.

In land acquisition disputes specifically, multiple claimants — original landowners, legal heirs, tenants, mortgagees — may have competing interests. A settlement among only some of them is legally incomplete. The court's ruling aligns with the principle that alternative dispute resolution cannot be weaponised to bypass parties who have a legitimate stake in the outcome.