Government Initiative on Tele-Law

The Government has recently launched the “Tele-Law” to provide easy access to legal aid to the marginalized section of the society and to those living in rural areas with the help of digital technology. This is joint initiative of the Ministry of Law and Justice and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).

Salient features of the scheme

• In the first phase, the scheme will be tested as a pilot across 500 Common Service Centres (CSC) in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
• Under the scheme, a portal called “Tele-Law” will be made available across the Common Service Centre (CSC) network. The portal will connect the citizens to legal service providers.
• Tele-Law service will also enable people to seek legal advice from lawyers through video conferencing available at the Common Service Centres (CSC).
• Non-Government Organisations, District Level Authorities, Law School Clinics, etc. working to provide free legal aid can also be connected to Common Service Centre (CSC) for the Tele-Law service
• A panel of lawyers from State capitals will be provided by the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) to provide legal advice and counselling to the seekers through video conferencing.
• Government has also proposed setting up a robust monitoring and evaluation system to assess the quality of legal advice.
• Under this scheme, every Common Service Centre (CSC) will appoint a Para Legal Volunteer (PLV) for rural citizens. The volunteers will help the rural citizens to understand the legal issues.
• The scheme also envisages training Women Para Legal Volunteers (PLVs) with an aim to promote women entrepreneurship and empowerment
• Tele Law scheme is being implemented as a continuation to the Access to Justice Project for Marginalized Persons which is being implemented by Department of Justice and United Nation Development Programme (UNDP).

Notes

Free Legal Aid to poor and needy is listed as Directive Principles of State Policy (DPSP) under Article 39A of the constitution. Despite that, a large section of people in the country, especially rural poor, are deprived of legal service. Therefore, such web-based initiative to serve the underprivileged litigants can act as a game changer for the society. Further to reduce the onus from “Tele Law” scheme, government has also launched “Pro bono legal services” and “Nyaya Mitra scheme” for quick delivery of legal advice. All above efforts by the government are praiseworthy, but there are certain bottlenecks in the implementation of the scheme. Nearly 55% of all pending cases in the country are those at lower courts, therefore, with such initiatives government should ensure clean justice to people at panchayat level, and should ensure that more number of cases doesn’t pile up at lower level nor they should reach higher level of judiciary.  Government should also ensure proper infrastructure and increase the judge-population ratio to tackle the problem effectively.