It was one fine day when Mohit, a grad student, was traveling on a local bus. Two elderly men were seated next to him. Within a couple of minutes both the men started a conversation about some X person and his struggle in filling a case in a court. For Mohit conversation appears a trivial one but later the conversation between the two men is something that draws attention of Mohit.

They were saying that it is possible to file a case even if a person is not able to afford the charges of an advocate for a legal proceeding in a court. And at the next stop, while stepping out of the bus they ended the conversation by saying that now person X is filing a case through free legal aid services. This brings inquisitiveness to Mohit what is free legal aid through which a person who cannot afford court fees yet can file a case. So, let us deal with this curiousness.

What is free legal aid or pro bono legal services?

Free legal aid itself suggests something free of cost. A free legal service or pro bono services is provided to those sections of society who cannot afford to hire a lawyer. The preface of the constitution of India i.e., the preamble aims to secure its people justice – social, economic, and political. Justice P.N Bhagwati ably stated that legal aid means making such arrangements which help in the administration of justice easily accessible to those who need it.[1]Constitution of India promote equality in every sphere of life of an individual. Indian constitution provides various articles which focuses on the poor and marginalized sections of the society and ensure justice for all. Article 14 [2] provides that the state should ensure that all citizens are treated equally before the law and have access to a legal system which is based on fairness.

Article 39A[3] provides free legal aid to the poor and weaker sections of society and guarantees justice for all. Furthermore, Section 304[4] of the code of criminal procedure, 1973, provides that when an accused is not in a condition to engage a lawyer, the court gives him a lawyer at the state's expense.

There are number of landmark judgements, where the court held that no person shall be deprived of the right to free legal aid. In the case of Hussainara Khatoon Vs State of Bihar [5]it was held that if an accused is not in a condition to afford a lawyer in his defense, then the state on its cost provides him free legal aid as being the matter of his right. In the case of Sheela Barse vs State of Maharashtra, [6]it was held that it is the duty of police to inform the nearest Legal Aid Committee about the person arrested. Further, it is the responsibility of the Magistrates and Session judges to inform the accused that if he cannot afford a lawyer, he can get free legal aid at the expense of the state.

In Sukhdas vs. Union Territory of Arunachal Pradesh[7] it was held that any person who is convicted under suspect trial and he is not aware or informed about his rights then the conviction would be overturned. In Khatri and others vs State of Bihar and Others [8] also called as "Bhagalpur Blinding's Case". It was one of the important judgements in implementation of Article 39-A of the constitution of India. Article 39-A conveys that states must provide free legal aid by making legislation, policy and so on.

Besides these judgements various other committees have been established in the view of legal aid services. PN Bhagwati Committee was formed under the leadership of Justice P N Bhagwati. As per the report of this committee, to create an equal platform for the rich and the poor, a well-structured legal aid system is required. Krishna Iyer committee is another committee, headed by Justice Krishna Iyer.

The main aim of this committee was to point out those people who need legal aid and the organization of that assistance to the public. In 1987, the central government passed the Legal Service Authority Act, 1987. The objective of this Act was the establishment of a legal framework. By the Amendment Act, 1994, National Legal Services Authority was established in 1995.

The purpose of NLSA was to bring a legal service plan for more effectiveness. [9] The other legislations giving support to Legal Aid are- The Bar Council of India, Bar Council of India Legal Aid Rules, 1983, Legal Practitioners (Regulation and Maintenance of Standards in Profession, Protecting the Interest of Clients and Promoting the Rule of Law) Bill, 2010. Regardless of the legislations there is still a large room for improvement for the proper functioning of Legal Aid Services in India. [10]

There are number of reasons for ineffectiveness of proper legal aid services in India. First and the foremost, lack of awareness among the people of India. People generally are not cognizant that they have a right to free legal aid. Mostly accused people are not aware of the fact that they can be represented by a lawyer without paying him a single penny. A well settled belief in the minds of people is that a free legal service is not generally of good quality is another major concern.

Due to lack of trust in free legal aid services people prefer private lawyers despite the fact that free legal services are available. Financial assistance to the legal aid authorities is also one of the drawbacks. The amount of pay given to the lawyers for legal services is insufficient and it results in halfhearted work. Another repercussion of meager pay, lawyers set up their own charges on the clients despite being paid by the state.[11]

As per Global Insight on Access to Justice 2019, 32 % experienced a legal problem in the last 2 years. And if we look at the data of legal capability, only 32% of the people knew where they can get information and advice in legal matters and 51% of the people know their rights and in context of hardship faced by people is 52%. [12] There is a case of 2019 from a small town in Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh, where a 14-year-old girl was sexually assaulted. In this case instead of filing a case, the police tried to solve the matter by compromise between the family and the accused. In this case the family must have been provided with free legal aid as their right.

Even there should have been a paralegal volunteer at the police station as per legal aid laws. As per her lawyer, the victim's father is the only breadwinner of the five-member family and there is a need for free legal aid for the family. This case is a clear example of lack of awareness among the people and inadequacy of help under the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987. [13]

As per the data of National Legal Services Authority, in the year 2017-2018 to 2021-2022 more than 1.03 crore people were able to receive free legal aid in India. In the year 2021- 2022 a major spike can be seen as a number of people were benefitted from the free legal aid services. Madhya Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand are five major states which saw a great spike in 2021- 2022 in the free legal aid services. Whereas Karnataka and other states saw a slight increase in services. Due to the poor performance of legal services in past years, it was under grave criticism. But with coming years the legal services benefitted number of people. [14]

Recently, Union Law Minister Ravi Shanker launched a website through which lawyers can register themselves for the pro bono service. An initiative of 'Pro bono legal services' has been launched through which lawyers can register themselves to volunteer the pro bono legal services. By this pro bono initiative, all the underprivileged litigants who are not in a condition to afford a lawyer can take free legal aid. Litigants from all the marginalized community including, people with lower income, senior citizens, people with disabilities, human trafficking victims, prisoners and people belonging to schedule castes and schedule tribes.

These people can approach those lawyers who register themselves for free legal services. 'Tele Law' is another milestone in providing legal advice to the people through Common Service Centre's. By this project the lawyers would connect to the clients through online mode i.e., video conferencing. [15]

Beside the above-mentioned initiative there is another framework for the proper establishment of pro bono legal services. In 2017 central launched Nyaya Bandhu initiative to provide free legal services to all the underprivileged and marginalized people, with the law students who play a crucial role in it. Now the law school has set up "pro bono clubs" in order handle through alternative dispute redressal and mediation. In 2021 the Department of Justice launched a pro bono scheme. As per this scheme, any student of law from 2nd year onwards can join the club as "pro bono associates".

The main aim of the pro bono club scheme is to improve efficiency of pro bono legal services by giving helping hands to the pro bono advocates by the law students. It will increase the practical knowledge among the law students.

It will give better understanding to the young legal minds. Present day there are several renowned law schools like, National Law University, Delhi, NALSAR, University of law, Hyderabad, NLSIU, Bengaluru, others are part of this pro bono club scheme. According to Nikita Pattajoshi, teacher, NLU Odisha, the club of pro bono club at Tamil Nadu National Law University has been visiting villages and giving legal advice to the people and spreading awareness among the people about the scheme. The TNLU pro bono club attended a number of meetings which helped the students to know the different problems of the people. [16]

The initiative taken by central government by implementing the pro bono club scheme will definitely result in greater change in the legal services. It will also help to tackle the pendency of cases. One of the loopholes of the free legal services, i.e., lack of awareness among the people can be tackled by this scheme. And most importantly the legal minds will get insight into various problems faced by the people.

It is worth mentioning that due to the presence of a number of small and big law firms it is very arduous to organize legal bro bono services. In addition, well-established chambers and the presence of independent lawyers is another hurdle in the establishment of pro bono legal services. As mentioned above, Nyaya Bandhu, an initiative of Department of Justice focuses to link the people who need legal advice to the lawyers who are of a mind to provide it. The Bar Council of India also endorse the importance of pro bono legal services. Law schools and students are highly encouraged to set up and be a part of the pro bono legal service. It is possible only when these paralegals will actively participate in this initiative. [17]

Now let's look over the advantages of pro bono, as it is very clear that there are number of advantages of pro bono for both the law students and lawyers. For law students, pro bono services will inculcate a sense of justice delivery and work as a reality check. Most of the time lawyers are inclined to pro bono to check the harsh reality of society. There are lot of examples to be cited where top lawyers worked as pro bono.

In the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack case, Advocate Raju Ramchandran insisted on taking the matter pro bono, where the capital punishment of the terror attack convict Amir Ajmal Kasab was challenged. Another eminent lawyer, Prashant Bhushan, is known for his pro bono work. It should be noted that besides this pro bono work done by senior advocates and practitioners there is still a lot to be done. [18]

After this judgement of the Supreme Court of India in Indira Jaisingh vs Supreme court of India [19] it was decided that pro bono work would be considered as qualifying point for the nomination as a senior advocate, in doing so pro bono services would be encouraged. [20] It would leave a positive impact on the underprivileged and marginalized people. They will get a hope to be represented in the court of law.

Now at the same time if we focus on the law school and law students, they play a crucial role in legal services or pro bono services. The reality is that the laws schools in India are utterly disengaged from social problems. As per the UNDP study the laws schools are unsuccessful in publicizing the legal aid services in their respective law schools. Due to lack of participation and initiatives by the law schools, the proper functioning of legal aid services has been affected.

Data from the top five NLUs taken by diversity survey Increasing Diversity and Increasing Access (IDIA) shows that due to the lack of fluency of the English language number of students are not able to participate and it act as a hindrance. Students come from diverse backgrounds, and the stigma of fluency is a main hindrance in the full participation of the students. The lack of representation in law schools impacts the contribution of lawyers in society. The studies reveal that the National Law University, Delhi and National Law University, Jodhpur engage the law students in the legal aid service. [21]

To sum up, we can say despite the presence of constitutional provision, legal aid as a right is not enjoyed by the people at large. Due to the lack of awareness among the people and at the same time lack of trust in the competency of pro bono lawyers are the major issues. The first thing to be done is to make people aware of their right. This is possible only by linking the law schools and the law students with the legal clinics. By campaigns and by delivering speeches in the rural areas in the best possible way.

We can use social media as the best source for spreading awareness. For the active involvement of law students, language barriers should be lessened and students participating in the pro bono work must be rewarded for encouragement. So, by taking affirmative actions at the right time we can achieve this distant dream.

End Notes:

1. Ysrao Judge, Right to free legal aid, Legal Service India (Oct. 09, 2023, 01:22 PM), https://www.legalservicesindia.com/article/1176/Right-to-Free-Legal-Aid.html
2. India Const. Art.14.
3. India Const. Art.39A.
4. The Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, § 304, No. 34, Acts of Parliament 1973 (India).
5. Hussainara Khatoon v. State of Bihar, 1979 AIR 1369, 1979 SCR (3) 532.
6. Sheela Barse v. State of Maharashtra, 1983 AIR 378, 1983 SCR (2) 337.
7. 1986 AIR 991, 1986 SCR (1) 590.
8. (1981) 1 SCC 627.
9. Legal Aid Cases in India, https://lawsstudy.com/legal-aid-cases-indian-constitution/ (last visited on Oct. 21, 2023).
10. Legal Aid: A Social Service Well-Intentioned On Paper But Riddled With Concerns On The Ground, https://articles.manupatra.com/article-details/LEGAL-AID-A-SOCIAL-SERVICE-WELL-INTENTIONED-ON-PAPER-BUT-RIDDLED-WITH-CONCERNS-ON-THE-GROUND (last visited on Oct. 21, 2023).
11. supra note 9.
12. World Justice Project, Global Insights on Access to Justice 2019, https://worldjusticeproject.org/access-to-justice-data/#/country/IND.
13. Manish Chandra Mishra, Saurabh Sharma, India’s Legal Aid System Needs More Female Paralegals, Monitoring (Oct. 22, 2023, 13:10 PM), https://www.indiaspend.com/indias-legal-aid-system-needs-more-female-paralegals-monitoring/.
14. Chethan Kumar, over 1cr got free legal service in past 5 years (Oct. 22, 2023, 14:10 PM), https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/over-1cr-got-free-legal-service-in-past-5-years/articleshow/91798842.cms.
15. Sanjeev K Ahuja, Poor to get free-of-cost legal aid, govt urges lawyers to offer pro bono service (Oct. 22, 2023, 15:28 PM), https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/poor-to-get-free-of-cost-legal-aid-govt-urges-lawyers-to-offer-pro-bono-service/.html.
16. R Radhika, Nyaya Bandhu Scheme: How law school students are trained for pro-bono cases (Oct. 22, 2023, 16:45 pm) https://news.careers360.com/nyay-bandhu-law-colleges-nlu-odisha-tnlu-nlsiu-nalsar-clubs-pro-bono-cases
17. Vishavjeet Chaudhary, A case for pro bono lawyering in India (Oct. 23, 2023, 11:04 PM) https://www.barandbench.com/columns/a-case-for-pro-bono-lawyering-in-india .
18. Jus Corpus, Pro Bono Legal Work In India (Oct. 23, 2023, 12:17 PM) https://www.juscorpus.com/pro-bono-legal-work-in-india/
19. (2018) 1 SCC 638.
20. supra note 18.
21. Rajesh Ranjan, Engage law students to improve legal aid (Oct. 23, 2023, 13:10 PM) https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/engage-law-students-to-improve-legal-aid-1225181.html