The Gujarat government Thursday announced ‘Family First—Samjavat nu Sarnamu (Family First—a place for persuasion), a scheme for out-of-the-court settlement of family disputes with the intervention of social, religious and reputed people of the society.
Committees comprising government officials and local religious/social leaders will be formed at district and taluka levels as part of the scheme, Law Minister Rajendra Trivedi announced while addressing a press conference in Gandhinagar.
“The state government has been continuously making attempts so that there is family security and harmony in the state. The state government has adopted a new approach to strengthen family relations and to preempt family disputes,” Trivedi was quoted in an official release.
According to Trivedi, attempts will be made to resolve cases through counselling under the new initiative.
“Maximum possible attempts will have to be made (by the committees) to arrive at a compromise so that family members do not have to pass through the difficult legal procedures. A decision will be taken after inquiring about all the factors affecting the family security and welfare,” the release said quoting Trivedi.
“To promote public welfare and make justice available through an effective social system is the state government’s priority. This system has been set up with a good intention of resolution of family disputes with the intervention of social leaders, religious leaders and locally reputed persons,” it added.
Formation of the district and taluka committees will include seven members each. By virtue of their post, district collector and taluka mamlatdar will be the chairman of the two committees respectively. In addition to locally reputed social leaders, each committee will have locally elected persons and people with sound legal knowledge as its members. At least two lawyers will be part of the committees and a woman representative wherever possible.
The district collector will appoint the members of the two committees. Their tenure will be for a year with the condition that the collector can renew it. The committee member can be removed by the legal department on its own or under the recommendation of the district collector while recording the reasons for the removal.
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The non-government members of the committees will be eligible to get an honourary daily wage of Rs 1,500 but cannot go beyond Rs 8,000 in a month. The committee can meet as many times as it finds necessary depending upon the available cases. The district committee will be seated at District Seva Sadan whereas the taluka committee will be at Taluka Seva Sadan.
As per the release, arguments made by parties before the committee will be kept confidential. Any part of the proceedings cannot be utilised as evidence in any judicial or quasi-judicial proceedings. The decision taken by the committee will have to be approved by the two parties in the dispute.
A senior official of the legal department said the scheme has been launched with a hope that it will also bring down the workload on the judiciary in the state. “There are many things which cannot be done in a legal proceeding but can be amicably resolved in such proceedings with intervention of social/religious leaders who command lots of respect in their respective areas. Rs 2 crore has been earmarked for the scheme. More money can be allotted for it depending upon the response we get from people,” said the official.