In Punjab alone, free legal aid was provided in 26,130 cases to poor and needy persons during the previous year.
As many as 3,03,395 cases were disposed of through various lok Adalats and awards of Rs 1,078,25,22,000 were passed, said Justice Dipak Misra, Judge in Supreme Court of India-cum-Executive Chairman, National legal Services Authority, after inaugurating the newly constructed ‘Punjab State legal Services Authority Complex’ at Mohali.
Justice Misra, in the presence of Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court Justice Shiavax Jal Vazifdar, High Court judged Justice SS Saron, Justice AK Mittal, Justice Surya Kant, inaugurated the Kanooni Sarthi(legal Assistance Establishment) in the office of Punjab State legal Services Authority Complex here.
He also inaugurated the legal Assistance Establishment Centre at Panchkula, near here.
A video conferencing session was held with the jail Superintendents of different Jails of Punjab. Justice Misra enquired about total strength (male and female) of inmates lodged in different jails and how many of them are getting the facility of free legal aid.
Justice Misra instructed all jail authorities to ensure that inmates are properly informed about their legal rights and the facility of free legal aid must be provided to each inmate irrespective of their crime.
He also launched the facility of video-conferencing and spoke to officials of the jail administration of Hisar and Sirsa in Haryana and directed them to prepare a list of the appeals made by the prisoners and send it to the Haryana State legal Services Authority (HSlSA) so that it could do follow-up on these appeals. Justice Misra also enquired about the number of jail inmates who are above 60 years of age in these jails.
later talking to the mediapersons, Justice Misra said that ‘legal Assistance Establishments’ are multiple services-single point establishments for providing facilities for legal aid seekers under one roof and at a single location.
He said that this establishment would provide to the beneficiaries some exclusive services which included quick information about their case status pending in any of the districts, legal aid and advice, and information about various schemes of NAlSA, Central, State Government etc.
Notably, Justice Misra had initiated the project across the country for setting up legal Assistance Establishment Centres. Equipped with video-conferencing facility, these have become operational in 13 states so far.