Supreme Court Judge Justice Madan B lokur has said that the mental block against accepting the children in conflict with law back into the mainstream has to be broken and Jharkhand legal Services Authority (JHAlSA) has done a commendable work in this regard. Justice lokur was speaking during the inauguration of ‘40-Hour Mediation Training of the 2nd Batch of Experts’ and ‘Felicitation Programmeof Best Mediators of Jharkhand’ at Nyaya Sadan in Ranchi.
Five of the inmates of Remand Home in Ranchi, who were given vocational training in Off-Set and Screen Printing by JHAlSA in association with the Government of Jharkhand were also given appointment letters by Justice lokur during the programme. They have been employed by SK Computers, Rameshwaram Printers, Bhagwati Enterprises and Rajiv Printing Press.
“Deterrence might not work in all the cases, hence a need of rehabilitation and reintegration arises where a child is given benefit of doubts that he was not born as a criminal as in most of the cases adults make them commit a crime for their own benefit,” said the Supreme Court Judge. There is a kind of mental block against giving them some employment as it is apprehended that they might comit some crimes again, hence it needs to be broken from the minds of the people, giving them another chance to get back into the mainstream, he added.
“Some people here have definitely come out of that mental block and have adopted them as their employees. It needs to be institutionalised and I am glad to say that JHAlSA has taken a lead work by institutionalising it,” said Justice lokur.
Referring to the importance of mediation, Justice lokur said lok Adalat and Mediation must not be confused as one thing as decision is taken by the lok Adalat itself, while in case of Mediation, the mediators facilitate the parties to arrive to a kind of consensus leading to the settlement of the dispute. It is for the parties that take the decision in mediation while it is the lok Adalat itself which takes decision to resolve the matter,” said the Supreme Court Judge.
Justice further added that efforts were on towards making mediation On-line so that disputes between the two people sitting on two distant places could be resolved easily.
Praising the suggestions made by Acting Chief Justice of Jharkhand HC Justice DN Patel of involving people from different walks of life in mediation, the Supreme Court Judge said that a sea change could be brought in resolving disputes if mediation is done by people from the community itself.
“There is something beyond rights which is taken care of in mediation...that is the interest of both the parties as I don’t think courts are the best place to resolve the dispute,” said Justice lokur. He expressed happiness that Jharkhand had been doing extremely well in training large number of mediators from different walks of life which could help in resolving disputes in short period of time after taking a lead in becoming the only state having Solar Powered Courts.
The Supreme Court Judge during the programme also felicitated seven mediators of the first batch of mediators having outstanding performances which includes — Arvind Goel from Sahebganj, Rajesh Das of Kokhan Division, Md. Muazzam, Prem Chand Tiwari of Garhwa, Suman K Shrivastava of Ranchi, Manisha Rani of Ranchi and Girish Malhotra from RanchI.
Earlier in his welcome speech, Justice Patel said that Jharkhand was the only fortunate State having such kind of experts for resolving the dispute between the two parties who have been trained professionally by master trainers for over 40 hours.
“The first batch of 21-22 mediators during the first year has successfully resolved a large number of cases during the mediation while individually, as many as 9 of the mediators have achieved more than 65 per cent of the success rate in the last one year, which we are going to celebrate today,” said Justice Patel. The team of mediators involves retired IAS Officers, IPS Officers, Doctors, Engineers, Businessmen, Chartered Accountants etc, he added. Justice H C Mishra and Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh also spoke on occasion.