To make legal awareness far fledged on a sustained basis, 17 Students legal literacy Clubs were constituted in different schools of Rayagada.
“Each club has 25 student members led by a teacher, who go to at least 100 families in spreading legal literacy. This legal literacy campaign will go on in Rayagada district headquarters and blocks, such as Kashipur, Bissam Cuttack, Muniguda, Padmapur and Gunupur. Slowly door-to-door campaign and awareness rally will be taken up in other blocks and spread to GP and village levels,” said chief guest District Judge-cum-Chaiman, DlSA, Rayagada Biswajit Das after inaugurating the front office of the legal aid clinic established in the court premises.
Collector Guha Punam Tapash Kumar joining as guest of honour said in her address that the students were the best messengers in spreading the rights of common citizens. “This is a social role of budding change agents to be played by these little angels apart from their regular studies which will help them in their future endeavours,” said Guha.
The meeting was moderated by Secretary DlSA Hrushikesh Sahu. He emphasized the pro-active roles to be played by the advocates, teachers and students in taking forward this noble initiative so that poor get free and fair justice.
“Several IEC materials like pamphlets, posters, banners, placards, handouts and books in local language depicting the legal rights have also been developed to complement the awareness campaign. Through this process, the court is going to the door steps of the poor,” Sahu informed.
Judge Das informed about the system of para-legal volunteers prevalent in the district and their role and establishment of legal aid clinics. A poor person seeking justice and service comes to court and other offices like District labour Office, District Medical, etc; but gets confused to whom to approach for grievance redressal and accessing required service. This is where a para-legal volunteer intervenes through a legal aid clinic.
They are also empanelled advocates to render free legal service to the person in need. There are about 70 such para-legal volunteers placed in the districts through legal aid clinics operational in District Court, District Headquarters Hospital, District labour Office, several police stations namely in Rayagada, KSinghpur, Chandili, Kumbhikota, Seskhal, etc. Other legal aid clinics have been established in GP headquarters like Pitamahal, Mukundapur, Chandili, Gadiseskhal, Halwa and Gumma. Besides, Rs 9,72,000 has been disbursed as compensation to victims of rapes, molestation, acid attack and other atrocities, he said.