Report on Study of the Institution of Gram Kachahari in Bihar

UNSPECIFIED (2022) Report on Study of the Institution of Gram Kachahari in Bihar. [Report]

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Abstract

The state of Bihar has a unique system of elected judiciary, called Gram Kachahari, whichprovides access to judicial services related to petty offences of both criminal and civil natureto the rural people. The Gram Kachahari is headed by the Sarpanch, who is assisted by thePanches. They are elected by the voters of the Gram Panchayat area. There are 8,463 GramKachaharies in Bihar, one within each Gram Panchayat area, which are established as perprovision of the Bihar Panchayati Raj Act, 2006. The Act prescribes that disputes are to besettled amicably, as far as possible, by the Gram Kachahari. There is a dearth of empirical studies on functioning of the Gram Kachaharis. So, this studywas taken up by SIGMA Foundation with grants from the Azim Premji University. Theobjectives were to know how the system functions, type of disputes which are reported forsettlement, the quality of judicial services delivered, the bottlenecks and barriers faced andpossible improvement of the system. The study was divided into two phases. In the firstphase, six Gram Kachaharis, known to have good performances, were selected to understandtheir performances. In the second phase, nine Gram Kachaharis were selected at random,one from each division. This approach was taken to assess if there was any differentialfunctioning between the two categories of Gram Kachharis, and if so, what are the driversof good performances. A mixed method of collecting both quantitative and qualitative data was adopted to assessvarious aspects of functioning of the Gram Kachaharis. One questionnaire was developed tocollect quantitative data from all the 15 Gram Kachaharis. Qualitative data was collected byinterviewing the key stakeholder and feedback of the community was taken through FocusGroup Discussions using different semi-structured discussion points. The data collected wasanalysed and the findings have been compiled in this report.

Item Type:	Report
Document Language:	Language English
Subjects:	Social sciences
Divisions:	Azim Premji University
Full Text Status:	Public
Note:	The research for this report was funded by the Azim Premji University. However, the opinions expressed in the report are that of the particular research team/organisation. They do not reflect the viewpoint of Azim Premji Foundation/University.
URI:	http://publications.azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/id/eprint/5681
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