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New Delhi: Justice UU Lalit of the Supreme Court has said that legal aid work should be encouraged and weightage should be given to the work done in this area by an advocate when the High Court or Supreme Court gives “senior” designation to advocates.
In an exclusive interview with ThePrint, Justice Lalit called upon fresh law graduates to take up legal aid matters, which would give them an opportunity to showcase their work and help them gain recognition in the field. He suggested doing away with the existing rule which allows only lawyers with five years of experience to take up legal aid cases.
“Legal aid to the poor does not mean bad legal aid. Legal aid should be of better order and inspire confidence. A person going through this channel should not feel that his/her case will be handled in a shoddy manner ,” the judge said, adding that new entrants to the profession with fresh ideas may be best suited for the job.
Under the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) scheme, Justice Lalit suggested, corporate law firms should also be supported for legal aid. “It should be made voluntary, not mandatory, where companies offer their services free of cost for legal aid work. Even 5 per cent of their workforce can be earmarked for this work.”
Read also: It is important to reach out to all sections of people, says CJI Raman at NALSA awareness program
Outreach Campaign on Legal Awareness
Justice Lalit is NS The chairman of the National Legal Aid Services Authority (NALSA) launched a 42-day outreach campaign on legal awareness earlier last month. Through this program several teams of NALSA connected 6,37,000 villages in the country and visited each village thrice. NALSA says that it has been able to reach at least 70 crore people through this campaign.
The campaign saw the participation of lakhs of volunteers, including college students, who organized camps in villages to educate residents about government schemes and their legal rights. In Uttar Pradesh alone, there were a million teams on the field, with an average of three members in each team.
“Such interactions help NALSA to understand the areas where intervention of the Legal Services Authority is required and what kind of pending cases can be resolved. Public Court which are conducted by NALSA and legal services authorities at the state and district level,” Justice Lalit said.
The physical outreach program that began on October 2 manifested itself in many ways, with volunteers covering 150 km a day in areas such as Ladakh.
At some places, NALSA approached the district administration to provide quick resolution to the problems of the citizens. Justice Lalit narrated his personal experience in Kanyakumari where local residents prevented transgender people from burying the dead of their community.
“As per the prevailing custom, transgender people bury the dead. But the village was not allowing them to the graveyard, and the objection was that they belonged to the category of the third gender,” the judge said.
But with the intervention of legal aid officials, the administration was persuaded to give another piece of land so that the community could have its own graveyard. “The Legal Services Authority ensured that this was done and the land was handed over in my presence,” Justice Lalit said.
Through the campaign, NALSA tried to make people aware that there is an organization that can reach out to them if their rights are violated or neglected.
Read also: 21 states yet to decide on petitions for premature release of over 1,600 prisoners – NALSA tells SC
Attracting Young Lawyers for Legal Aid
Among other things, NALSA provides legal aid to marginalized people in court-based litigation, where litigants are unable to afford advocates. Justice Lalit said the sector needed reforms to attract young, talented lawyers.
On his suggestion, the Bar Council of India is now proposing to ask law colleges to adopt districts in their respective regions, where fourth and fifth year students can interact with local residents and resolve their legal issues. can guide them in doing so.
“If internship in rural areas is mandatory in medical and dental courses, why should law students not be encouraged to do so?” The judge said. He said it would be a learning experience for the students, and that when they join the profession, they would be “more prone to the legal aid framework” and would not be averse to the idea.
Justice Lalit accepted that legal aid was not as beneficial as private litigation. Therefore, he said, it is time to give institutional recognition to lawyers engaged in legal aid.
“During my interactions with the State Legal Services Authorities, which are headed by High Court judges, I advised them to include a column in the forms filled by lawyers who apply to become senior. The experience of legal aid should be weighed before this coveted recognition is given to aspiring lawyers,” he said.
Virtual Lok Adalat
Justice Lalit said that NALSA will now use technology to reduce the pendency of litigation in the courts. “NALSA Organized Two Virtual” Public Courtdue to the pandemic this year, and There were more settlements on both the occasions as compared to our seasons in pre-covid times,“said the judge.
In July, NALSA did mediation to settle 29 lakh cases pending in various courts across the country and in September this figure rose to 42 lakh. “The last Public Court In pre-Covid times only 14 lakh cases were disposed of,” Justice Lalit said.
NALSA is also working towards establishing a permanent Public Court To promote pre-litigation arbitration. 72 such views were seen in a pilot project CourtLaunched in Uttar Pradesh in July. “We are seeing how they work, and if the public believes in them, we can replicate them in some other states as well,” he said.
(Edited by Rohan Manoj)
Read also: SC issues digitization SOP to help speedy disposal of cases, begins process with 5 HCs
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