JUDGMENT : 1. By the present writ petition, the petitioner is challenging the award/order dated 30.09.2014, passed by the Permanent Lok Adalat, Moradabad awarding compensation to the extent of Rs. 4,500/-each to the applicants in Application No. 153 of 2013 on account of loss of the articles sent by speed-post by the complainants which contained their passports and demand drafts. 2. Counsel for the petitioner contends that as per Section 6 of the Indian Post Office Act, 1898 (hereinafter referred to as the Act, 1898), the Postal Department enjoys immunity with regard to any liability arising out of any loss, mis-delivery, delay or damage of any postal article in the course of its transmission. She further adds that the Permanent Lok Adalat can not entertain an application for award against the Postal Department in light of the immunity of the Postal Department as provided under Section 6 of the Act, 1898. Counsel for petitioner has also relied upon judgments of this Court in the cases of (i) unreported judgment dated 05.04.2011 in Writ-A No.-17240 of 2011; Dr. Shri Dev Mishra vs. State of U.P. And Others, (ii) unreported judgment dated 09.02.2019 in Writ-A No.-387 of 2015; Ram Dhari Yadav and Ors vs. State of U.P. And Anr, and (iii) A reported judgment dated 13.08.2010 by a full bench of this Court in the case of Neena Chaturvedi vs. Public Service Commission reported in (2011) 1 All LJ 382. 3. Heard Counsel for the petitioner and perused the record with her assistance. 4. The judgments of this Court relied upon by the petitioner do not apply to the facts of this petition. The judgments in the case of Dr. Shri Dev Mishra (Supra) and Ram Dhari Yadav (Supra) relate to whether relief could be granted to petitioners who sent their applications through India Post, but due to delay their applications could not reach in time to the recruitment body and therefore their prayer was that the respondents should admit their applications even after a delay. Both these judgments have relied upon the full bench judgment of Neena Chaturvedi (Supra), which is also relied upon by the counsel for the petitioner in the present petition. The Full Bench of this Court in the case of Neena Chaturvedi (Supra) was deciding upon the issue whether the post office acts as an agent of the sender or the receiver. The Full Bench of this Court in the case of Neena Chaturvedi (Supra) was deciding upon the issue whether the post office acts as an agent of the sender or the receiver. The relevant paragraph 5 of the Neena Chaturvedi (Supra) where the Full Bench formulated the question of reference is as follows: "5. The question that can be formulated for consideration would be "when applications are invited, one through post office and the other by any other means or only through post, does the post office become the agent of the addressee, because there is express or implied authorisation by the addressee to send the articles by post." In its judgment, the Full Bench has not settled whether the protection from liability of the post office extends to all the activities carried on by it apart from the regular post. Therefore, for the issues involved in this petition, the law settled in Neena Chaturvedi (Supra) has no applicability. 5. The primary contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner is that the Postal Department enjoys immunity from any liability in light of immunity under Section 6 of the Act, 1898, which reads as under: "6. Exemption from liability for loss, misdelivery, delay or damage:-The Government shall not incur any liability by reason of the loss, mis delivery or delay of, or damage to, any postal article in course of transmission by post, except in so far as such liability may in express terms be undertaken by the Government as hereinafter provided; and no officer of the Post Office shall incur any liability by reason of any such loss, mis delivery, delay or damage, unless he has caused the same fraudulently or by his willful act or default." He submits that it protects the Government and the Officers of the Post Office from any liability by reason of loss, mis-delivery or delays for damage to any postal article except insofar as such liability is undertaken, in expressed terms, by the Central Government. However, in the present petition, the respondents have availed the services of speed-post and not that of a regular post. However, in the present petition, the respondents have availed the services of speed-post and not that of a regular post. Speed post as a value added faster service was first introduced in the year 1986, some eighty-eight years after the Act, 1898 was enacted and therefore by any stretch of the imagination, the immunity under Section 6 of the Act, 1898 can not be expected to also cover the same. The National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission in the case of The Postmaster General Kerala and Ors. vs. Kiron Rasheed A.S. Manzil reported in 2011 (2)C.P.C. 328 has taken the same view while rejecting a revision petition filed by the Postal Department against an order for payment of damages for delay in the arrival of a speed post. The relevant paragraph 3 of The Postmaster Genral (Supra) reads as under: "3. Coming to the merits, the only substantive ground for challenge to the order of the Kerala State Disputes Redressal Commission is that under Section 6 of the Indian Post Office Act 1898, the RP/OP incurs no liability for loss, mis-delivery or damage/delay in delivery, except when caused fraudulently or willfully. This ground was raised before, and examined in sufficient detail, in the impugned order. The State Commission has very rightly observed that this provision "is not in any way connected with the modernized forms of transactions like speed post, e-mail, money transfer etc." This Court agrees with and approves the view taken by the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission. 6. Next contention of counsel for the petitioner is that Permanent Lok Adalat has no jurisdiction to decide the cases involving the loss or mis-delivery of a postal article in light of the immunity that the Postal Department enjoys by virtue of Section 6 of the Act, 1898. This Court does not find any force in his contention. Permanent Lok Adalat is a special adjudicatory body set up under The Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 (hereinafter referred to as the Act, 1987). Powers of Permanent Lok Adalat are provided under Section 22 of the Act, 1987. It reads as under : "22. This Court does not find any force in his contention. Permanent Lok Adalat is a special adjudicatory body set up under The Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 (hereinafter referred to as the Act, 1987). Powers of Permanent Lok Adalat are provided under Section 22 of the Act, 1987. It reads as under : "22. Powers of Lok Adalat or Permanent Lok Adalat.—(1) The Lok Adalat or Permanent Lok Adalat shall, for the purposes of holding any determination under this Act, have the same powers as are vested in a Civil Court under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (5 of 1908), while trying a suit in respect of the following matters, namely:— (a) the summoning and enforcing the attendance of any witness and examining him on oath; (b) the discovery and production of any document; (c) the reception of evidence on affidavits; (d) the requisitioning of any public record or document or copy of such record or document from any court or office; and (e) such other matters as may be prescribed. (2) Without prejudice to the generality of the powers contained in sub-section (1), every Lok Adalat or Permanent Lok Adalat shall have the requisite powers to specify its own procedure for the determination of any dispute coming before it. (3) All proceedings before a Lok Adalat or Permanent Lok Adalat shall be deemed to be judicial proceedings within the meaning of sections 193,219 and 228 of the Indian Penal Code (45 of 1860) and every Lok Adalat or Permanent Lok Adalat shall be deemed to be a Civil Court for the purpose of section195 and Chapter XXVI of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (2 of 1974)." Section 22A of the Act, 1987 defines "Permanent Lok Adalat" and "Public Utility Services", which reads as follows: "22A. Definitions.—In this Chapter and for the purposes of sections 22 and 23, unless the context otherwise requires,— (a) "Permanent Lok Adalat" means a Permanent Lok Adalat established under sub-section (1) of section22B; (b) "public utility service" means any— (i) transport service for the carriage of passengers or goods by air, road or water; or (ii) postal, telegraph or telephone service; or (iii) supply of power, light or water to the public by any establishment; or (iv) system of public conservancy or sanitation; or (v) service in hospital or dispensary; or (vi) insurance service, and includes any service which the Central Government or the State Government, as the case may be, in the public interest, by notification, declare to be a public utility service for the purposes of this Chapter." Furthermore, Section 22B of the Act, 1987 provides the establishment of Permanent Lok Adalat for exercising jurisdiction regarding Public utility services, which reads as follows: "22B. Establishment of Permanent Lok Adalat.—(1) Notwithstanding anything contained in section19, the Central Authority or, as the case may be, every State Authority shall, by notification, establish Permanent Lok Adalat at such places and for exercising such jurisdiction in respect of one or more public utility services and for such areas as may be specified in the notification. Establishment of Permanent Lok Adalat.—(1) Notwithstanding anything contained in section19, the Central Authority or, as the case may be, every State Authority shall, by notification, establish Permanent Lok Adalat at such places and for exercising such jurisdiction in respect of one or more public utility services and for such areas as may be specified in the notification. (2) Every Permanent Lok Adalat established for an area notified under sub-section (1) shall consist of— (a) a person who is, or has been, a district judge or additional district judge or has held judicial office higher in rank than that of a district judge, shall be the Chairman of the Permanent Lok Adalat; and (b) two other persons having adequate experience in public utility service to be nominated by the Central Government or, as the case may be, the State Government on the recommendation of the Central Authority or, as the case may be, the State Authority, appointed by the Central Authority or, as the case may be, the State Authority, establishing such Permanent Lok Adalat and the other terms and conditions of the appointment of the Chairman and other persons referred to in clause (b) shall be such as may be prescribed by the Central Government.” From the joint reading of both the above provisions regarding the power and subject matters that can be entertained by the Permanent Lok Adalat, it becomes clear that postal services are Public Utility Services as Section 22A of the Act, 1987 and as per Section 22 and Section 22B, Permanent Lok Adalat has the same powers and jurisdiction as civil courts to decide such cases. Therefore, this Court does not find any strength in the contention that Permanent Lok Adalat can not decide cases against the Postal Department. 7. In view of the aforesaid, all the grounds of challenge to the impugned order could not be sustained. The petitioners have approached this Court against an award of Rs.4,500/-in favour of each respondent. This petition has been pending before this Court since 2015, seven years of litigation challenging damages worth only Rs.4,500/-, that too by a Department of Government seems a cruel joke on the judiciary. The Department has definitely lost much more amount throughout this litigation than it was ordered to pay as damages to the respondents. What speaks volumes is that even the respondents are not contesting this petition. The Department has definitely lost much more amount throughout this litigation than it was ordered to pay as damages to the respondents. What speaks volumes is that even the respondents are not contesting this petition. Furthermore, it is worth pointing out that even in a suit for recovery of less than Rs.25,000/-, a second appeal is barred under Section 102 of the Civil Procedure Code, 1908. 8. The Supreme Court has time and again warned against unnecessary and frivolous litigations taking up valuable time of courts. In the case of Gurgaon Gramin Bank vs. Khazani and Ors. reported in AIR 2012 SC 2881 , the Supreme Court has lamented upon the conduct of the appellant bank and asked for an affidavit detailing total expenditure on litigation till the Special Leave Petition. On finding that the total expenditure was Rs.15,950/-and the award challenged by the bank was a paltry sum of just Rs.15,000/-, the Court was shocked and made the following observations:- 13. Gramin Bank like the Appellant should stand for the benefit of the gramins who sometimes avail of loan for buying buffaloes, to purchase agricultural implements, manure, seeds and so on. Repayment, to a large extent, depends upon the income which they get out of that. Crop failure, due to drought or natural calamities, disease to cattle or their death may cause difficulties to gramins to repay the amount. Rather than coming to their rescue, banks often drive them to litigation leading them extreme penury. Assuming that the bank is right, but once an authority like District Forum takes a view, the bank should graciously accept it rather than going in for further litigation and even to the level of Supreme Court. Driving poor gramins to various litigative forums should be strongly deprecated because they have also to spend large amounts for conducting litigation. We condemn this type of practice, unless the stake is very high or the matter affects large number of persons or affects a general policy of the Bank which has far reaching consequences.” 9. In light of the above observations, this Court does not find any illegality in the award dated 30.09.2014 passed by the Permanent Lok Adalat. Devoid of any merit, this petition is, accordingly dismissed.