Rajasthan's first private court to operate from next week

JODHPUR: Seen as a major step towards the adaptation of the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) mechanism in the state's legal system, a private court would start functioning from Monday in Rajasthan, a senior official said.

The court will entertain matters agreed by parties to be resolved through arbitration and its decisions will be as legally recognisable and maintainable as those of regular courts, director of the court Sudarshan Gupta said.

All such matters, which have the possibility to be resolved through arbitration with the mutual agreement in the litigants, will be resolved here within 120 days, he said.

"Specially long pending civil matters, will be resolved here through arbitration, wherein the retired judges of high court and supreme court will provide their services apart from the legal experts.

"Generally, all disputes which can be decided by civil court, can be arbitrated in this Private Court for Arbitration, where the litigants will have the facilities of arbitration in professional manner and that too at much less the expenditure as compared to the regular courts," said Gupta.

The concept of ADR has found its origin from the high pendency of the cases in different courts on account of shortfall of the judges and other staff in the courts, inadequate structure, inordinate adjournments, laxity on old pending matters and unreasonable delays caused by the long arguments by the advocates.

Gupta informed that the private arbitration is exempted from the Code of Civil Procedure 1908 or Indian Evidence Act 1872.