New Delhi, Aug. 21 -- The Supreme Court on Friday held a rare special Lok Adalat where judges, lawyers and senior advocates shared the bench to mediate and settle long-pending disputes, as the top court began a three-day exercise to clear its case backlog.

Shedding their usual judicial attire, judges sat in their courtrooms, just below the raised platforms they usually occupy, in combinations of two (the only exception being the Chief Justice of India, who sat with two other judges), and heard cases of litigants who appeared either physically or virtually, either through their lawyers or through the district legal services authority that represented their cases.

The litigants interacted freely with the judges, who settled several cases ...