LEGAL AID CLINICS SCHEME 2010 .....Legal Reforms

Legal aid Clinics are intended to provide legal relief easily accessible to the indigent and backward sections of our society. They are almost on the lines of primary helath centres where a doctor and other auxiliary medical staff provide basic helath care to the people situated in village areas affected with poverty and social squalor, Like the doctors rendering health services to the people of the locality in the primary health centre, a lawyer manning the legal aid clinic provides legal services to the people . The thrust is on the basic legal services lige legal advise and assisting in drafting of notices, replies, application, petitions etc . The lawyer manning the legal cilinic will also attempt to resolve the disputes of the people in the locality, preventing the dispures form maturing into litigation. This provides the lawyer in the legal aid clinic an opprtunity to undersatan the difficulties favced by the people in the distant villages for access to justice . Legal aid clinics have to be manned by para-legal volunteers selected by the Legal Services Authorities and lawyers with a sense of commintment ,sensibility and sesitiveness to the problems of common people .

Legal aid clinic is on ot the thrust areas envisioned the NALSA's Quinqennial vision & strategy document . NALSA plans to set up legal aid clinics in all villages.


Name Of the Scheme.

The Scheme shall be called the National Legal Services Authority (Legal Aid Clinics ) Scheme, 2010.

Objective :-

The objective of the Scheme is to provide legal services to the poor , marginalised and weaker sections of the society as categorised in Section 12 the Legal Services Authorities Act 1987 (Central Act ) , especially to the people living in far away places including the places with geographical barriers , away from the seats of justice and the offices of the legal services institutions ( Legal services institutions , means the Taluk/Sub-divisional / Legal Services Committees , State Legal Services Authorities and Supreme Court Legal Services Committee established under the Legal Services Authorities Act , 1987)


The aim of the Scheme is to provide an inexpensive local machinery for rendering legal services of basic nature like legal advice, drafting of petitions , notices , replies, applications and other documents of legal importance and also for resolving the disputes of the local people by making the parties to see reason and thereby preventing the disputes reaching courts. In cases where legal services of a higher level is required the matter can be referred to the legal services institutions established under the Legal Services Authorities Act , 1987.


Location of Legal Aid Clinics :


The legal aid clinics established by the Legal Services Authorities shall be located at a place where the people in the locality can easily access . A room withiin the office building of the local body institutions like village panchayat shall be ideal .


Sign-board exhibiting the name of the Legal Aid Clinic

There shall be a sign-board both in Englis and the local language, depicting the name of the legal aid clinin. The board shall display the working hours and the days on which the clinic will be open. Working hours of Legal Aid Clinics shall be decided by the legal services institutions having territorial jurisdiction in consultation with the District Legal Services Authority .


In next post we will see more about the Scheme ..............continued ........

The Transparency Officer : one more step in RTI

The Success of the RTI Act ,has compelled the Government to appoint the Transparency Officer to check the increasing tactics practices to mess up or to confuse the applicant while giving  the answers of the Questions asked in RTI.  Recently Government has not only the Transparency Officers but also draw the guidelines for these Officers.

Transparency Officer shall be the main centre of all actions connected with promotion of institutional transparency commensurate with the letter and spirit of the RTI Act . In performing this role the TO shall :

1   Act as the interface for the commission vis-a-vis the public authority on the one hand , and on the other vis-a-vis the public authority and the general public .information seeker . 

2. Engage continously in implemanting the Commisions's directive dated 15.11.2010 regarding pro-active disclosured under section 4 of RTI Act , vis-a-vis the public authorinty concerned . 

3. Regularly monitor decisions of the Central Information Commission (http://cic.gov.in) with a view to identity areas of openness both generic and specific as a result of such decisions.

          Ensure that all level of employees of the public authority are sensitized abourt these decisions and theri implications. 

         Be responsible for issuing advisories , to officers /staff about need for sensivity to institonal transparence and act as a change agent.

         Be responsible for sensitizing the officers/staff that the time limit stipulated in the RTI Act are outer limit for matters raised under RTI Act and officers/staff are required to be mentally tuned to disclose all informations, predetermined as open, within the shortest  possible time on receiving request.

 

          Be the contact point for the CPIO/FAA/Divisional Heads in respect of all RTI related matterss of the Organisation.  He will be the clearing house in all matters about making transparency the central point of organizational behaviour.

 

            Constantly remain to touch with the top management in the public authority about the strategy and the action to promote transparency within the organisation.

 

               Promote good management practices with the organisation centered on transparency.

 

                Devise transparency indices for various wings of the public authority in order to introduce healthy competition in promoting transparency.  

 

                 Help set up facilitation centres within the premises of the public authorities where members of the public can file their requests for disclosure of specific information nd can inspect the records and documents etc.

 

                  Work out, inconsultation with the departmental officers,the parameters of record management - its classification and indexing, plan of action for digitization of documents and records, networking etc. and oversee and help implement the function laid down in section 4 (1) (a) and 4 (1) (b) of the RTI Act.

 

                  Prepare information matrix based on analysis of RTI applications filed before the public authority and response thereof and, suggest to the top manageent the need for process reengineering, wherever necessary, as well a so work out modaliies of suo motu disclosure of information.

 

                  Be responsible for creating conditions in the organization to estblish and information regime, where transparency/disclosure norms are so rubust that the public is required to have only the minimum resort to the use RTI Act to access information.

 

                 Be responsible for operation a user-friendly website for various information relating to the public authority concerned, including  inter alia search option..

 

                  With the help of the appropriate wing to the public authority, set-up arrangements for training of the personnel to promote among them higher transparency orientation away from intultive reflex towards secrecy, now common.

 

                   Establish dialogue with the top management and key officials of the public authority regarding prevention of unnecessary confidentiality classification of documents and records under the Official Secrets Act and to check over classification.  

 

Court Directs Delhi Police for Special attention to Motor Accidents

As it was told in my last post that the increasing number of Motor accidents in the Metro has draw attention not only of the society , government but the judiciary has also a taken a serious view of it .



Recently Fresh directions were issued to the Police Authorities .

The Directions to the Police Authorities are as :-

1) The Director General of Police of each State is directed to insturct all Police Stations in hi State to comply with the procisions of Section 158 (6) of the Act. For this purposem the following steps will have to be taken by the Station House Officers of the jurisdictional police stations.

1). Accident Information Report in Form No.54 of the Central Motor Vehicle Rules .1989 (AIR for Short ) shall be submitted by the police (Starion House Officer) to the jurisdictional Motro Vehicle  Claims Tribunal , within 30 Days of the registration of the FIR. In addition to the particulars required to be furnished in Form No. 54, the police should also collect and furnish the following additional particulars in the AIR to the Tribunal : (i) The age of the victims at the time of accident (ii) The income of the victim (iii) The names and ages of the dependent family members . 

2) The AIR shall be accompanied by the attested copies of the FIR , site sketch/mahazar/photographs of the place of occurance , driging licence of the driver , Insurance police (and if necessary, fitness certificate ) of the vehicle and postmortem report (in case of death ) or the Injury/Would  certificate (in the case of injuries ). The names /addresses of injured or dependant family members of the deceased should be furnished to the Tribunal .


3) Simultaneously,  copy of the AIR with annexures thereto shall be furnished to the concerned insurance company to enable the insurer to process the claim .


4) . The police shall notify the first date of hearing fixed by the Tribunal to the victim (injured) , or the family of the victim (injured) or the family of the victim {in case of death } and the driver, owner and the insurer. If so directed by the Tribunal , the police may secure their presence on the first date of hearing .

The Positive thing is that The Delhi police have already started implementing the Claim Tribunal Guidelines. Beside the the Higher Judiciary have also kept an contunious eye on the new procedure and project .

Jail products outlet in district court campus : a historical step

The first Outlet Of Jail Products in District Courts in India

Recently , yesterday , the District Courts of East and North-East District , the Karkardooma Courts have created once again a mile stone not only in social justice . Earlier also establishing the Judicial Academy , Permanent Mediation Centre , Lok Adalat , Evening Courts , and the first e -courts in the country any many others achievements had been named to this District Court . Yesterday , the first Outlet of the famous Tihar jail products was inaugareted and opened for mass . The present Chief Justice of the Hon'ble High Court of Delhi inagurated this outlet for not only the litigants but also for lawyers and staff members .

Inaugration stone

The Item displayed are made by the prisoners in tihar

Rate list

The principle behind this idea is the moral that , " Hate crime , not the criminals ". To give them the positive attitude towards life and society many schools, skill training , education , sports are being provided by the jail authority to help the prisoners not only to keep them busy but also to learn and earn by doing these things .As the list Shows itself that more than fifty items are made by those hands which were banned by the law to not work in the society .


This Outlet has not only attracted the mass people coming to court today but the items like , fruit cake , biscuits, and Namkeen were sold hand to hand today .They are not only delicious but looks cheaper than the the market .Apart this , the people buying items there are seen to be more happy and curious while knowing the makers of this TJS .....meant for Tihar jail Special . The items other than eatables selled today were the cotton shirts, file covers and envelops. Hope that these new experiments could divert those peoples who in any conditions lossed their way of life .

Challenges and Changes : The MACT (Motor Accident Claim Tribunal ) in Delhi

There is no doubt about the fact that , the  traffic of capital ,Delhi is not only blamed as the worst in the populated cities but the raising accidents rate is also drawing attention of not only the system and government but also pinched the eyes of the judiciary . The Delhi High Court , while ,proceeding on ,  a suit filed by the Lions Club International directed the state government to take a serious note on the increasing number of accidents in Metro . 

 In the year 2010 , Implementing the directions of Hon'ble High Courts , a new pilot project had been launched in the Delhi District Courts specially for the speedy disposal of Motor Accident Claims Tribunal . The target is clear to accord the claim within 120 days of the accident . During the trial in the high court , Court itself has not only ensured but get bounded all the insurance companies to co-operate in this pilot project . There are so many detailed directions and orders to be implemented by the agencies , state government , insurance companies and the Police .

The Police is directed to create a  special ,MACT CELL , in each of the district uder the supervision of Additional Commisioner of Police ranked officer . The police personnals posted here were given a detailed training . Now the changed procedure adopted U/Sec, 158 (6) of the Motor Accident Claim Tribunal Act , is that the reoport and the copy of FIR is submitted within 24 hours of the accident with the Accident Information Report ( The AIR Report ) ,comprising the basic facts of the case. As all about the injured/victim, Driver of the offending vehicle , Owner of the Offending vehicle and the insurance company . After that and within 30 days , the Investigation Officer has to submmit the Detailed Accident Report ( The DAR Report ) . This reports reveals not only the detailed report about the accident , but about the relatives or legal heirs of the injured /deceased , the income and source of income of the victim , all the medical documents , all the documents after the verification about its genuniness and put the case in the court with all the parties , 

The Insurance Comany has been directed to appoint nodal officers and authorised representatives to get the case setteled on the very first date of hearing . Although they have their legal representatives as retainer counsels permanently appointed for each Tribunal ,of the District , but to speed up the procedure addtional steps were taken .




The tribunals ,following  and implementing the new procedures are successfully achieving the goal of speedy justice at least of compensation matters . And the results have not only positivised the disposal of claim cases of District Courts but also get attention by the various state judiciary .It hopes that the new changes will be helpful to litigants atleast to get the compensation in time they need it the most .






bye for now friends ...