Sanniddhya Sekhri
‘Legal Aid’ means giving legal assistance and legal services for free to poor and needy people who cannot afford the service of a lawyer for conduct of a legal proceeding in any court, tribunal or before any authority. Justice Blackmun in Jackson v. Bishop says that; “The concept of seeking justice cannot be equated with the value of dollars. Money plays no role in seeking justice.” Also Article 39 A of the Constitution of India provides for equal justice and free legal aid and simultaneously aims to ensure that opportunities for securing justice are not denied and that access to justice is not restricted to only privileged sections of the society. It is also important to mention that legal aid services are not only restricted to representation in court cases, but also include spreading legal literacy, facilitating actualization of the entitlements of people under welfare laws and schemes, and the provision of advice and counseling. Almost 80% of India’s over 1.25 billion population is eligible for free legal aid including women, children, persons in custody, persons with disability, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and those with mental illness etc.
Legal aid becomes a great concern in a country like India where there is a huge pendency of cases in all the courts. According to the NALSA (Legal Services Clinics) Regulations, 2011 legal aid clinics should be established in areas where people face ‘geographical, social and other barriers’. But according to ‘India Justice Report 2022’, reduction of legal aid clinics has been seen from 14,159 in 2020 to 4,742 in 2022 which means that the national average of villages per legal service clinic has increased from 42 in 2020 to 127 in 2022 due to the drastic fall in the number of legal service clinics across the country. There is a great role played by paralegal volunteers and empanelled lawyers in providing legal aid in which the share of women is increasing day by day. According to the IJR 2022, out of 50,136 empanelled lawyers, the share of women has increased from 18% in 2020 to 25% in 2022. The study highlights the importance of Undertrial Review Committees (UTRCs) to control the unabated growth of prison population. In this regard it states, “Concerned with the unabated growth of prison populations, in 2013, the Supreme Court ‘In Re Inhuman Conditions in 1382 Prisons’, directed the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA), along with the Ministry of Home Affairs and State Legal Services Authorities (SLSAs), to constitute Undertrial Review Committees (UTRCs).” In NALSA’s nationwide campaign to identify under trial prisoners eligible for release by UTRCs between July and August 2022 saw 47,618 under trial prisoners recommended for release nationally; of which 24,789 prisoners were released. Victim compensation schemes that provide financial support to victims or dependents who have suffered loss or injury as a result of a crime and who require rehabilitation have come to be one of the core priorities of the legal aid system. However, analysis of NALSA data shows that implementation of these schemes is rudimentary.
Legal aid can more efficiently be provided if all the three organs of Government (Legislature, Executive, and Judiciary) co-operate and work hand-in-hand. We trust and hope that all the stakeholders will work in tandem to help the poor, needy, downtrodden and marginalized section of the society.
(The author is student of 1st Semester, The Law School, Jammu University)
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