Justice Gogoi announces legal aid authority’s move to take services to needy by tying up with NGOs

The National Legal Services Authority (Nalsa) is tying up with several non-governmental organisations such as the Bachpan Bachao Andolan to take its legal outreach programme for the poor and the needy further, Supreme Court judge Justice Ranjan Gogoi announced on Monday.
Nalsa will undertake camps throughout the country, especially in backward areas, to increase legal literacy, he said at a press conference at the Nalsa office at Jamnagar House in Delhi.

The first such camp has already been organised in Assam and the next one will be undertaken shortly in Rewa, Madhya Pradesh, he said.

Justice Gogoi, the third most senior judge in the top court hierarchy, is in line to become Chief Justice of India in October when CJI Dipak Misra demits office.

The Nalsa camps will work to increase citizens’ awareness about the services and benefits earmarked for them by the government, a press release said. In the quarter ending March 2018, some 108 such legal services camps will be organised across India.

Nalsa is working to ensure literacy clubs in every school, and plans to launch a web portal on child rights soon.

The authority also plans to work on digitising legal services clinics in jails to ensure that no prisoner remains unrepresented in law. The data will be linked with the court’s information service.

Large monitors will be placed outside all court complexes to make people aware of their legal rights, as per the new scheme rolled out by Nalsa.

Theme songs of Nalsa will play four times a day in movie theatres for 30 days as part of the authority’s latest outreach programme.

As part of its efforts to ensure justice for children, the authority will also set up a cell on child rights with Bachpan Bachao Andolan. “Nalsa is on a roll,” Justice Gogoi said. Justice means ensuring that all every citizen gets what is due to him under the Constitution, he said.