Offtrack: Bhubaneswar: Temple of Justice

No legal luminary, Harihar Sahoo acts as the Presiding judge and his rulings are usually accepted without a murmur of protest.

No legal luminary, Harihar Sahoo acts as the Presiding judge and his rulings are usually accepted without a murmur of protest.

In appearance and ambience the 800-year-old Patitapaban temple is no different from the thousands of others dotting Bhubaneswar, the City of Temples. The multi-coloured structure, the exquisite carvings and the tidy front courtyard crowded on most days with devotees. On Sundays, however, people throng the temple not to worship but to seek justice.

Every Sunday evening, the temple compound becomes a Jana Adalat (people's court) and the arguments of disagreeing parties drown out the hymns and clanging of temple bells. The presiding judge is 65-year-old Harihar Sahoo -- no legal luminary, just a respected elder of the Laxmisagar locality. It's now almost five years since the social court began dispensing justice. Sahoo has settled over 400 cases -- mostly civil disputes like disagreements over property and land. But with its fame spreading to even distant areas like Cuttack, Phulbani and Nayagarh the court is now also hearing divorce suits and criminal offences. At the moment, about 100 cases are pending with the court.

To cope with the rush, Sahoo is contemplating making the Jana Adalat a bi-weekly affair. "The popularity of the court is understandable. Compared to the regular courts, one gets speedier justice here," maintains Sahoo. While the country's civil courts take years and decades to settle disputes, the Jana Adalat is a simpler alternative although it has no legal sanction. Anyone can lodge a complaint and is thereafter expected to pay a processing fee of Rs 20. Ranjit Das had been fighting a land dispute case with a neighbour for 12 years in the local Bhubaneswar court. Fed up with the slow progress, he approached Sahoo. Soon after, the litigants withdrew their case from the civil court. "Sahoo made our life much easier," testifies Das.

The cases vary from the routine to the bizarre. Rabindra Kumar Srichandan of Sriramnagar village has recently sought Sahoo's intervention in a piquant situation. Though married, Srichandan had an affair with his sister-in-law and got her pregnant. Now, he wants Sahoo to help him get rid of his wife and legitimise his relationship with his sister-in-law. Sahoo is yet to decide on the case.

"People's expectations are scary. But here an attempt is made to match them," says Sahoo. So far, he has succeeded to a large extent. Urmila of Phulbani had come to the court hoping that her errant husband Janak would be directed to pay for her maintenance. Janak was called in and asked to hand over the keys of the roadside kiosk where he ran a tea stall to his wife. Janak submitted to the judgement. When Purna Das, driver of the Bhubaneswar sp, was cheated of Rs 20,000 three years ago by some land dealers, he went straight to the Jana Adalat instead of approaching the police. A quick hearing and Das got back his money. "Sahoo's court is the best option for people like us," declares Das. "Justice is almost instant and always fair."

The success of the court depends on the people's absolute faith in Sahoo's judgement. It's because of this that his rulings are usually accepted without a murmur of protest. When someone comes to the court with a complaint nothing really binds the opposite party to appear before Sahoo. "Yet they do," Sahoo says, smiling. Members of the temple management committee often cajole and impress upon them to appear, which they normally do.

"The fairness of the trial in the temple courtyard is obviously the cutting edge," explains Gandharba Sahu of the Patitapaban Temple Committee. Though so many cases have been settled so far, in only seven disputes did the disgruntled parties, dissatisfied with Sahoo's judgement, approach the civil courts. But as luck would have it, the district court also passed the same judgement as Sahoo.

Sahoo's task perhaps is made easier because the hearings are held in a temple complex. When the contending parties appear for a hearing they swear before Patitapaban, the local deity, to tell nothing but the truth. For many of them, therefore, the justice meted out by Sahoo is divine justice.