ROLE OF NATIONAL LEGAL SERVICE AUTHORITY

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 2
RESEARCH OBJECTIVE ................................................................................ 2
RESEARCH DESIGN ....................................................................................... 2
RESEARCH QUESTION.................................................................................. 3
SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS .......................................................................... 3
NATIONAL LEGAL SERVICE AUTHORITY .............................................. 4
ROLE OF NALSA............................................................................................. 6
CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 10
REFRENCES ................................................................................................... 11
INTRODUCTION

This project is based on the topic that is role of national legal service authority .under this
project role of national legal service in framing a better society, in providing legal help to
each member of the society. Under this project it will also be discussed that what basically
NALSA is, how it come to effect and what are the changes which happened after the coming
of NALSA.

NALSA is an authority which came into force after the enactment of the statue National
Legal Service Authority Act ,1987.Nalsa has helped the different sectors of the class to get
the justice on time .NALSA has also helped the inmates on the jail to get awareness about the
programmes that NALSA carry out.

Research Objective

The main aim and objective of this research project is to find out the effect of NALSA and
the role played by the NALSA. How NALSA has helped the different sectors of the society
to get justice. And the steps taken by the NALSA to attain its objective.

Research Design

This project includes various different types of research design .this project includes
descriptive ,review, inductive , deductive and analytical type of research. Descriptive as there
are many case laws involved in this project therefore each case is described clearly and
extracted the important point from the cases. Review type of research involves literature
review .in this project literature review has also been done therefore it includes review type of
research . this project also include inductive as there are many new things added by the
researcher. Inductive research always includes addition of new things .analytical research as
for this project the researcher has gone through different web sources and online research
materials and then analysed that sources and came to an conclusion.

Research Question

The main question for this research it that :-

1.What is NALSA and how it came into force.
2.What is the role played by NALSA to bring justice to every citizen of this country.
3.What are the steps taken by NALSA to fulfill its objectives.

Scope and Limitations

Scope for this project will cover only the role played by the NALSA as a collective and
limitation is that it will not cover the individual bodies that is lok adalats . Even the adequate
source was also not available .
NATIONAL LEGAL SERVICE AUTHORITY

The National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) has been constituted under the Legal
Services Authorities Act, 1987 to monitor and evaluate implementation of legal aid
programmes and to lay down policies and principles for making legal services available
under the Act.. In 1987, the Legal Services Authorities Act was enacted by the Parliament
which came into force on 9th November, 1995 to establish a nationwide uniform network for
providing free and competent legal services to the weaker sections of the society on the basis
of equal opportunity.

In every State, a State Legal Services Authority and in every High Court, a High Court Legal
Services Committee have been constituted. District Legal Services Authorities, Taluk Legal
Services Committees have been constituted in the Districts and most of the Taluks to give
effect to the policies and directions of the NALSA and to provide free legal services to the
people and conduct Lok Adalats in the State.

Supreme Court Legal Services Committee has been constituted to administer and implement
the legal services programme insofar as it relates to the Supreme Court of India. NALSA lays
down policies, principles, guidelines and frames effective and economical schemes for the
State Legal Services Authorities to implement the Legal Services Programmes throughout the
country.

Main functions of legal service authority act are:

1. To Provide Free and Competent Legal Services to the eligible persons;
2. To organize Lok Adalats for amicable settlement of disputes; and
 3. To organize legal awareness camps in the rural areas.

With the help of the NALSA it has now become easy to provide legal aid and with the help of
the legal awareness camps in the ruler areas it has

Lok Adalat

Lok Adalat is a forum where the disputes/cases pending in the court of law or at pre-litigation
stage are settled/compromised amicably. Lok Adalat has been given statutory status under the
Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987. An award made by the Lok Adalat is deemed to be
decree of a civil court and is final and binding on all parties and no appeal lies before any
court against it.

Nature of Cases to be referred to Lok Adalats

Any case pending before any court.
Any dispute which has not been brought before any court and is likely to be filed before any
court. Provided that any matter relating to an offence not compoundable under the law shall
not be referred to/settled in Lok Adalat.
ROLE OF NALSA

On the official website of NALSA they have mentioned about there vision and there mission
that is :-
Vision
“To promote an inclusive legal system in order to ensure fair and meaningful justice to the
marginalized and disadvantaged sector”.
Mission:
“To legally empower the marginalized and excluded groups of the society by providing
effective legal representation, legal literacy and awareness and bridging the gap between the
legally available benefits and the entitled beneficiaries.
To strengthen the system of Lok Adalats and other Alternate Dispute Resolution mechanisms
in order to provide for informal, quick, inexpensive and effective resolution of disputes and
minimize the load of adjudication on the overburdened judiciary1”.

NALSA has helped the society very much and till now get succeeded in its objectives. The
main objective of NALSA was to provide legal aid to the weaker and poorer section of the
society. In the year , 2011 more than 6.95 lakh persons have benefited through legal aid
services in the country. Out of them, more than 25.1 thousand persons belonged to the
Scheduled Castes, about 11.5 thousand Scheduled Tribes, about 24.6 thousand were women
and 1.6 thousand were children. During this period, 53,508 Lok Adalats were
organised. These Lok Adalats settled more than 13.75 lakh cases. In about 39.9 thousand

1
Available at http://nalsa.gov.in/content/vision-statement last visited on 10 October 2107
Motor Vehicle Accident Claim cases, compensation to the tune of Rs. 420.12 crore has been
awarded.

Some of the objectives of NALSA are2:

1. Ensuring free, competent effective and comprehensive legal services.

2. Legal services focused on women
3. increasing legal services to the children
4. Setting up of legal aid clinics in villages in the most economic and effective manner
5. Legal services to workers in the unorganized sector
6. Paving way for social justice litigation for environmental protection
7. Establishment of legal aid clinics in Universities, Law Colleges and other institutions
8. Continuing with the special programmes for North-Eastern States
9. Use of NALSA’s website and NALSA’s web-based monitoring system
10. Social audit of the legal services activities

LEGAL AWARENESS PROGRAMMES

As a part of the preventive and strategic legal aid, NALSA through the State Legal Services
Authorities, conduct legal literacy program. In some States, Legal Literacy Programmes are
conducted every year in schools and colleges and also for empowerment of women in a
routine manner, besides the rural legal literacy camps. NALSA undertook special legal
awareness programmes on MGNREGA, Rights of Senior Citizens and Women’s Welfare
Programmes. A special scheme for settlement of grievances relating to MGNREGA through
LokAdalat also was implemented by NALSA.

Steps taken by NALSA to bring justice.

1. Para-Legal Volunteers

2
Available at https://indialawyers.wordpress.com/national-legal-services-authority-nalsa/ last visited on 10
October 2017
One of the problems faced by legal services institutions is their inability to reach out to
the common people. Therefore to come over this problem National Legal Services
Authority (NALSA) has come up with the idea of para-legal volunteers to bridge the gap
between the common person and legal services institutions. The scheme selects
volunteers from villages and other localities to provide basic legal services to the
common people. Educated persons with commitment to social service and with a record
of good character are selected. The volunteers are trained by district legal services
authorities. The training equips them to identify the law-related needs of the
marginalised in their locality. Coming as they do from the same locality, they are in a
better position to identify those who need assistance and bring them to the nearest legal
services institutions to solve their problems within the framework of law. They can assist
disempowered people to get theirentitlements from government offices where ordinary
people often face hassles on account of bureaucratic lethargy and apathy 3.

2. Legal aid Clinics in Villages:

In order to reach out to the common people, NALSA has come up with a project to set up
legal aid clinics in all villages.. Legal aid clinics work on the lines of primary health
centers. where assistance is given for simple ailments and other minor medical
requirements of village residents. Legal aid clinics assist in drafting simple notices,
filling up forms to avail benefits under governmental schemes and by giving initial
advice on simple problems. A legal aid clinic is a facility to assist and empower people
who face barriers to ‘access to justice.’ 4

3. Legal Aid Camps:

NALSA has organized camps targeted neighbourhood itself. The people shall not be
made to travel long distances for the purpose of attending camps. Local bar shall be
encouraged to participate. Local voluntarily organizations, social clubs, colleges,

3
Available at https://indialawyers.wordpress.com/2011/11/10/bringing-legal-aid-a-step-closer-home/ Last
visited on 11 October 2017
4
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/bringing-legal-aid-a-step-closer-home/article2609718.ece Last
visited on 11 October 2017
universities and other educational institutions shall be engaged to join as partners in such
ventures for mutual benefit.

4.Free and competent legal services

There has been a widespread grievance that lawyers engaged by legal services
institutions do not perform their duties effectively and that the lawyers are not paid
commensurately for their work. In order to solve these problems, NALSA has framed the
National Legal Services Authority (Free and Competent Legal services) Regulations,
2010 to provide free and competent legal services. Scrutiny of legal aid applications,
monitoring of cases where legal aid is provided, and engaging senior lawyers on
payment of regular fees in special cases, are the salient features of the Regulations. In
serious matters where the life and liberty of a person are in jeopardy, the Regulations
empower legal services authorities to specially engage senior lawyers.
CONCLUSION

In Today’s World there is a very much need of the justice .mostly to the poor and uneducated
sector of the society . for this purpose only NALSA was established . NALSA has till now
had funcitioned up to the mark. By providing free legal aid and awareness camps they have
opened the gates of the Some People might know that they are entitled to get legal aid from
the state but don’t know whom to approach for it. For such people, NALSA Provides for the
awareness camps which tells them how to obtain legal aid and approach institutions like
NALSA which is working in this area. NALSA is keen to develop and promote a culture of
conciliation instead of litigation in the country so that the citizens of this country prefer to
resolve their disputes and differences across the table in the spirit of goodwill and
brotherhood. NALSA also try to ensure that even the weakest amongst the weak in the
country do not suffer injustice arising out of any abrasive act of state or private person; it
aims to make the weaker sections of the society ‘legally empowered’. At last, suffering
wrong is not one’s fate anymore. Accessing justice and helping others to access it should be
one’s aim. Right to justice and free legal aid is one’s fundamental right which can’t be
denied.
REFRENCES

1.www.nalsa.gov.in
2. www.nalsa.gov.in
3. www.rostrumlegal.com
4.www. thehindu.com
5. www.globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu