Four Calcutta High Court judges today heard appeals for damages by 1,550 victims of erosion by the Ganga, creating "history' for the Lok Adalat. Thousands of people who lost their land, livelihood and homes to erosion in the past two decades thronged the court, at Malda College. The hearing, due for years in many cases, was completed in a matter of hours and the judges said the verdict would be announced after the claims for compensation were examined. The state government would then have to let the Adalat know within a prescribed period what it was offering the affected families. The National Legal Ser- vices Authority convenes such a court to dispose of pending cases of a similar nature at one go. Justice Kalyanjyoti Sengupta said: "It is an historic occasion