Many a times, poor and needy
people get caught in the clutches of law due to any wrongdoings they may or may
not have done, but they cannot afford to avail of legal services for
themselves. Legal Aid implies giving free legal services to such persons, who
are in dire need for it, where a lawyer offers his services pro bono (for free)
for the conduct of a case or a legal proceeding in any court, tribunal or
before any authority. The original Legal Aid movement appears to be of the year
1851 when some enactment was introduced in France for providing legal
assistance to the needy.
It is our Constitution that
ensures that Legal aid is made available to all the poor and needy by placing
the obligation on our government which is supposed to provide for the funding
for the cost of litigation in view of promoting equality before the law and a
legal system not marred by reason of economic or other disability. Hence, the
aim of Legal aid services is to ensure that constitutional pledge is fulfilled
in its letter and spirit and equal justice is made available to the poor,
broken and weaker sections of the society.
Who can avail
of legal aid? Is legal aid available only to the people who are litigants?
One need not be a litigant to
seek aid by means of legal aid. Legal aid is available to anybody on the road.
The concept of seeking justice cannot be equated with the value of dollars.
Money plays no role in seeking justice.
The crux of the situation is
that the deprived section of the society is ignorant of their right to be
represented in court, due to which they never ask for help from anyone, and
simply choose to stand in a corner silently fearing for the sentence that
awaits them. There is something about their loss of control over how they will
be portrayed in front of the judge who ultimately decides their fate, which is
too great a fact to be ignored.
Therefore, in the case of Khatri v. State of Bihar, the court answered
the question the right to free legal aid to a meager and ignorant accused who
was incapable of engaging lawyers. It held that the state should provide such
aid not only at the stage of trial but also when they are first produced before
the magistrate or remanded from time to time and that such a right cannot be
denied on the ground that the accused did not ask for it. Magistrates and
Sessions Judges must inform the accused of such rights. The State cannot avoid
this obligation by pleading financial or administrative inability or that none
of the aggrieved prisoners asked for any legal aid
Despite such statutory
provisions, there have been no significant or momentous changes in this area.
To bring about that remarkable change, The Supreme Court Legal Services
Authorities Act, 1987 was passed by the parliament so that the legal aid
movement could achieve its goal.
Legal aid is
not a charity, but is a responsibility of the state and right of the citizens. The
major obstacle to the legal aid movement in India is the lack of legal awareness.
People are still not aware of their basic rights due to which the legal aid
movement has not achieved its goal yet. It is the absence of legal awareness
which leads to exploitation and deprivation of rights and benefits of the poor.
Therefore, it is the need of the
hour to provide the poor illiterate people with legal knowledge and impart educated
on their basic rights which should be done from the grass root level of the
country. PM Narendra Modi, expressly encouraged the current legal fraternity to
contribute towards the Legal Aid movement when he stated that not only
experienced lawyers but also fresh law graduates must allocate at least 5 years
of their practice towards Legal Aid services. And further, this approach of the
PM was appreciated by Justice Krishna Iyer who also emphasized on law reforms
in this area.
Numerous NGOs have been set up
for this cause. They focus on depressed and poor segments of our society; help
them to go through the process of legal advices. As per the surveys conducted
by such NGOs, it has been observed that many people are suffering from hardship
or injury especially in India. They feel frustrated because they have no means
to redress injustice or rectify what is wrongful, their applications or
requests go unattended, under staffed or under equipped institutions and Government authorities fail
to respect what they promise.
In providing Legal Aid, the
Legal Aid institutions and NGOs should also use proper Alternate Dispute
Resolution methods so as to speed up the process of conciliation between
parties to the case so as to avoid further appeals. We are yet to see a day
when the Legal Aid Movement will change the face of deprivation of legal
services to the underprivileged section of our society, but we do hope that day
will come soon.
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