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legal aid

22 May 2020
However, the GNLU students have reached the limits of what they alone can achieve and are keen to help other law schools start a wider movement
20 May 2020

NLIU Bhopal students studying employment law have started a website, telephone helpline and initiative to assist migrant labourers with some of the difficulties they face during the Covid-19 lockdown.

01 October 2019

NUJS Kolkata, Nalsar Hyderabad, NLU Delhi. NLU Odisha and NLUJAA Assam have jointly launched a legal aid-style clinic called Parichay, to help those stripped of Indian nationality under the controversial _National Register of Citizens (NRC)_regime.

12 April 2018

Nirma University’s law school students brought India’s apex rural development organisation NABARD’s and the Ajeet Rural Development Foundation’s (ARDF) support to 20 women in a village in Ahmedabad.

24 February 2016

The Indian Legal Aid And Awareness Network (ILAAN), a group of more than 20 law school legal aid clinics set up by NLSIU Bangalore in collaboration with NLU Delhi, has released a statement “condemning the repression of Jagdalpur Legal Aid Group”, which fights for the rights of tribals in the area and has continued to face harassment by the authorities as first reported in October of last year.

11 January 2016

bhqrd4p5NLU Delhi ‘s legal aid cell is fighting against two foetal-sex-determination doctors in the Delhi high court, for girl-child-protection NGO Beti Bachao Samiti. Senior advocate Sidhharth Luthra is representing the doctors – Sunil Fakay and Urvashi Fakay.

14 July 2014

“For the first time in the history of judiciary, the Bar Council of India has decided to address the woes of new entrants in the Bar by providing `5,000 as stipend, per month, for a period of five years,” reported the New Indian Express.

The BCI’s members and various state bar council chairmen and vice chairmen met recently in Delhi, according to the report, and resolved that advocates who accept the stipend can in return provide legal aid to poor litigants under the Legal Service Authority Act 1987.

The BCI charges law graduates Rs 2560 as registration fee to take the All India Bar Examination for their practice certificate.

07 May 2014

LSC: Recognise

NLSIU Bangalore’s legal services clinic (LSC) explains some of the projects that have won it $5,000.

27 January 2014

2,648 new legal aid clinics: CJI P Sathasivam has inaugurated 2,648 legal aid clinics, each to be manned by two volunteers and a lawyer, in villages across India to assist villagers in getting BPL card, Election ID, Aadhaar Card, Gas connection and government welfare schemes [IBNLive]

Lowly paid consumer forum members: Bombay HC has directed Maharashtra to increase the remuneration of its district consumer forum members. Right now a full-time member gets paid Rs 800 per day while a part time members gets paid half of that. 19 out of 40 district forums in the state are dysfunctional due to vacant posts of members [DNA]

Delhi HC illegal heritage renovation: 500 Delhi high court advocates have made a representation to the chief justice of the HC to look into the allegedly illegal construction and renovation work of the Sher Shah Suri mosque located within the HC’s premises [PTI]

Delhi HC public prosecutor axed: Delhi HC’s chief public prosecutor Pawan Sharma has been continuing illegally in his post since the expiry of his three-year term on 21 December 2012, but will now be removed. The irregularity was discovered after Delhi’s Lt governor wrote to chief minister Arvind Kejriwal asking for an explanation on why the government was losing many cases over the past few years. Sharma maintained that his remaining in the post was not illegal in the absence of a notification formally ending his tenure, and that he had been attending meetings and taking files of cases from the new government as well [Mail Today]

22 April 2012

Legal aid The NUJS Kolkata legal aid society has started the first ever Indian magazine on the subject of legal education reform with articles by Madhava Menon, Ruma Pal and other legal education experts.

09 June 2011

Exclusive: Members of NLU Delhi's legal aid committee have won their first release of an undertrial prisoner languishing in Tihar jail for two years for the theft of a Rs 1,000 wallet.

06 May 2011

Legally India newsletterThis week we looked at some of those lawyers who took the road that is often rocky but also sometimes incredibly scenic.

06 May 2011

NUJS Kolkata legal aid society (LAS) has called for a strengthening of legal aid networks across India, as it released a report of the college’s legal aid activities this year which included tie-ups with human rights organizations and a successful national conference.

04 May 2011

image Five NLSIU Bangalore students with their legal aid clinic have won their consumer forum action against Pepsi Co for charging differential minimum retail prices (MRPs) on beverages, with the forum finding that the practices were “unfair” and “illegal”.

24 March 2011

Infocracy India, legal aid societies

 

The legal aid societies whom we’ve contacted have asked us a few questions. Very pertinent and straight-forward too. Here are the questions and our answers. For more details please see www.infocracyindia.org


What do the legal aid societies get? 

 

 

A chance to make an impact? Yes.

The law school legal aid societies, we believe, have been formed to achieve two objectives:

  1. Take legal aid to the downtrodden.
  2. To teach law students the skills and help them imbibe the values which make a good pro bono lawyer.

Infocracy India helps legal aid societies achieve these objectives.

The RTI applications we file will have a significant societal impact.

Moreover, not only will the law students involved learn the art of filing good RTI applications but they’ll also know for themselves, how information when available freely, is a powerful catalyst to make democratic changes.

 

Money? No.

Secondly, we don’t promise much money, but in case we receive funding from members of the legal industry, we will distribute the funds to our LAS partners.

Also, we don’t believe that money is an incentive in initiatives like Infocracy India. None of the founders are making any money, nor do we plan to.

We are passionate about this cause and would like to partner with passionate groups and individuals.

 

Recognition? Yes.

Thirdly, in case you do genuinely good work, LegallyIndia, Lawctopus and other media, both print and online, will surely cover our work.

You’ll be thus recognised for your efforts.

 

 

Why shouldn’t we do it alone/independently?

 

Work independently, but share.

Infocracy India is a collaborative effort and it in no way discourages or hinders independent activity.

All that we require you to do is tell us about the RTI applications you’ve filed, the results which you’ve got and the impact that has made.

The RTI application, the response of the public information officer will be shared on our website for free upload. This will allow anyone to replicate these RTI applications in their own areas.

 

Consider this:

Someone from NUALS Kochi files an RTI application relating to an issue ‘X’ and someone from say, ICFAI Dehradun believes that his/her region too needs the issue ‘X’ to be addressed.

The person from ICFAI can then download the NUALS’ RTI application, see what information it yielded and even talk to the NUALS person to see if a better worded RTI application can be filed. Thus the RTI application gets filed more quickly and will yield better results.

Legal Aid Societies are free to file independent RTI applications. As a part of Infocracy India we only require you to ‘share’ the application, the results and the impact with us.

 

Pan India projects require a pan India collaboration.

Secondly, Infocracy might sometimes take large, pan-India projects; like getting the details of how the MPLADs funds are being used. We’ll get our team of 10-15 student researchers to work for sure.

At the same time, we’ll surely require support from the LASs. Herein lies the power of collaboration.

 

Finally consider this:

If someone in NUJS Kolkata files an RTI application against a public authority in Bangalore, we might have someone in NLSIU Bangalore go and inspect the documents. It saves the person in Kolkata time and money and makes the whole process efficient.

 

 

What will the work of a Legal Aid Society team exactly be?

Infocracy India is a very young initiative and some of our ideas are presently being executed. It is thus difficult to define the nature of tasks. We plan to be flexible and evolve as we move ahead. However, here are a few things which LASs are expected to do.

 

Share. Share the RTI applications you file, the responses which you get and track the impact it makes. We’ll put the applications and the responses on our website.

The stories of societal impact will be shared with media, both print and online. Rest assured, we won’t take the credit of your efforts. We are not in this business!

Sharing RTI applications and the results are the only mandatory things we want you to do. Other things may include:

 

Joining us to implement a pan India project. Most of the types we’ll have our team of student researchers/activists doing the work.

Sometimes, we might require the help of legal aid societies. In cases you want to help, just let us know about it.

 

Include information on RTI as a part of your legal literacy camps. You can put videos, pictures, presentations and modules on our website.

This will help other LASs better their legal literacy camps. We’d also be covering these camps from time to time on our website.

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The question really is...

 

 

OR

 

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Images from here, here, here and here.

14 March 2011

image A man walks along a beach, picks up a starfish and flings it into the ocean. He does it with all the starfish he finds. Someone asks him: “Hey! There are thousands of starfish here. What difference are you making?” The man bends down, picks up another starfish and flings it into the ocean. “It makes difference to this one.”

25 February 2011

Legally India newsletterAt India’s law schools legal aid and pro bono culture is flourishing but somewhere along the line lawyers seem to lose the opportunity to do good.

19 February 2011

IMG_9956 Legally India reports live from NUJS Kolkata this weekend where roughly 24 law schools are gathered to discuss how to take law school legal aid forward. Latest updates: How to start a legal aid cell, Prof Madhava Menon slams the Legal Services Authority and the implementation of gram nyayalaya while inspiring.

22 November 2010

The-Firm-CNBC-TV18The proposed Legal Services Board has elicited mixed reactions from legal practitioners on CNBC-TV18’s The Firm last week, with Rajiv Luthra noting that state bar councils do need tighter regulation in some manner, Lalit Bhasin and Karan Bhosale arguing that the existing regulators can already do the job and MP Bharucha predicting that it could facilitate the entry of foreign law firms.