India's Per Capita Lawyer Ratio Is Better Than Most Countries, But Legal Aid Unavailable To Many : Justice Sanjiv Khanna

While speaking at the NALSA’s First Regional Conference for the year 2023 titled ‘Northern Regional Conference on Enhancing Access to Justice’ organised by the Uttar Pradesh State Legal Services Authority at Varanasi, Justice Sanjiv Khanna on Saturday said that despite the country's per capita lawyer ratio being far better than most other countries in the world, it faces a crisis in legal aid for the underprivileged. 

Justice Khanna said, "If one looks at Section 12 of the Legal Services Authority Act 1987 which provides for categories of people who are eligible to legal aid, according to which 80% of entire Indian population are eligible for seeking legal aid. The provisions have been put in place to ensure that those who cannot afford it have the legal representation in every state."

He then added, "India’s per capita lawyer ratio is far better than most other countries in the world but inspite of that the problem of adequate legal aid still bothers us." 

Justice Khanna also spoke about the distinction in the reaching in and reaching out approach to legal aid. He said, "I’d like to distinguish between reach in and reach out approach to legal aid. When I refer to reach in - it is resorted to by the public when they approach us for legal aid. What we have to differentiate is the ‘reach out’ approach i.e. when we have to provide legal aid on our own to the public. This can be in the form of legal literacy and legal awareness. But more important than that, when there is a crisis in any situation, we have to come out and reach out and provide legal aid to them." 

He then pointed out the need to focus on legal aid in the pre-trial stage and said, "There has been a lot of focus as far as legal aid in trial and appellate stage is concerned, the area of concern however is the pre-trial stage which can be divided into three categories i.e. pre-arrest stage, arrest stage and remand stage. This is the area we must focus for the simple reason that this is a situation when a person is being called to the police station there the awareness of rights and availability of legal aid has significant importance." 

Justice Khanna focussed on different schemes such as the Victim Compensation Scheme, Witness Protection Scheme, etc which need a far more holistic approach in orer to solve the difficulties that have arisen in executing and implementing these schemes. 

He also, however, pointed out, "Look, many of these things cannot be implemented. What has to be done is selectively and carefully implementing different parts of the entire role that we have with certain amount of flexibility so that we are fully able to fulfil our statutory and constitutional duty." 

Narrating from personal experience, Justice Khanna also told that even today the clients seeking legal aid believe that they will be required to pay some money to the legal aid counsel. He said, "Let me share with you that when I was appearing as a legal aid counsel before the High Court, the accused came to me in the court and asked me “How much do I have to pay you?”. I was taken aback. But that’s a fact. Many of the convicts do believe that you have to pay."

NALSA’s First Regional Conference for the year 2023,

The conference was inaugurated by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul who was accompanied by Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Rajesh Bindal, Chief Justice, Allahabad High Court.

The conference was also attended by Justice Pritinker Diwaker, Judge Allahabad High Court & Executive Chairperson, UPSLSA and Justice Manoj Misra, Judge, Allahabad High Court & Chairman, HCLSC, Allahabad.

The Participants of the conference include Executive Chairperson, State Legal Services Authorities and Chairperson, High Court Legal Services Committee and Member Secretary, State Legal Services Authorities of 11 participating States of the Northern region, i.e., Bihar, Chandigarh, Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Jharkhand, Ladakh, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.