JUSTICE AND LEGAL AID

Abstract

India is a sovereign, socialist, secular democratic republic, having a living and organic Constitution which essentially guarantees to all it’s citizens socio-eco political justice, equality of status and of opportunity and liberty. “Constitution is not to be construed as a mere Law, but as the machinery by which Laws are made. A constitution is a living and organic thing which of all instruments has the greatest claim to be construed broadly and liberally.In order to ensure equality of Law and justice, it is not only sufficient that law treats rich and poor equally, but it is also necessary that the poor or the disadvantaged person must be in a position to get equal opportunity and equal protections of the laws enabling them to have easy access to the court and to assert or enforce their rights properly and adequately in the system of justice so that not only dejure but de facto equality before the law can be ensured, and equal justice can be dispensed. Legal aid is an outcome of the emergence of the socio economic philosophy and welfare state. The focus of legal aid is on distributive justice, effective implementation of welfare benefits and elimination of social and structural discrimination against the poor, weak, disadvantaged people of the society. In a developing and poor democratic country like India, it is the constitutional obligation of the state to provide legal aid to such poor and disadvantaged people. The aim of this work is to critically analyze the legal aid provisions of the Constitution of India and the connected legislation on the background of the prevailing socio-legal conditions and to review the role of the Apex Court i.e. the Supreme Court of India as the guardian of the Constitution and the protector of the fundamental rights of the citizen, in determining the significance and the constitutional status of legal aid. Since the Supreme Court holds the special Constitutional position with the law making power, the observations, deliberations of the Supreme Court have only been stressed and referred to and therefore, the decisions or observations of other lower Courts, on the subject, have not been stressed upon generally.