Tele Law Programme

Context :

● The Department of Justice organised an event commemorating the milestone of reaching more than 9 lakh beneficiaries under the Tele Law programme.

● Minister of Law and Justice, Electronics & Information Technology and Communication, Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad was the chief guest.

● The last year saw a surge of nearly 369% in the number of beneficiaries seeking legal advice.

Probable question:

1. Critically evaluate the Tele Law programme and suggest the way forward to realise Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas and Sabka Nyaya.

Tele Law Programme :

● Tele-Law means theuse of information and communications technology for the delivery of legal information and advice. This e-interaction between lawyers and people would be through the video-conferencing infrastructure available at the Common Service Centres(CSCs).

● The programme has the Department of Justice partnering with NALSA and CSC e-Governance Service India to mainstream legal aid to the marginalised communities in India through CSCs.

● The programme connects citizens with lawyers through video conferencing facilities by the Para Legal Volunteers (who are preferably women) at the identified CSCs.

● The lawyers are part of the expert panel of lawyers stationed at the State Legal Service Authorities and the CSC.

● Tele- Law was launched in 2017 covering 170 districts in 11 States through 1800 CSCs, at present Tele-Law is operational in 633 districts in 34 States/UTs covering 50,000 CSCs.

Benefits of the Programme :

● Affordable justice: Legal aid is provided to people free or at nominal costswhich have made justice affordable to the common man.

● Increased access to justice:  The programme allows people to seek legal assistance through CSCs even if they are geographically far away from courts and lawyers thereby increasing access to justice.

● Job creation: The programme creates jobs by encouraging village level entrepreneurs to set up CSCs to provide access to the programme.

Challenges:

● Connectivity issues: The programme relies on having good internet connectivity and telecommunications infrastructure. Those living in areas with poor connectivity are unable to take advantage of the programme.

● Lack of awareness: Despite the tremendous increase in beneficiaries seeking legal aid in the last year, more can be done to spread awareness regarding the programme.

● Lack of feedback: The programme does not collect feedback from the beneficiaries on the quality of advice provided. This gap prevents the effective evaluation of the programme.

● Lack of linkages to other programmes: At present, the lawyers only give advice to the beneficiaries. Linkages to other programmes like legal aid and pro-bono lawyers are not present which acts as a barrier to people from accessing courts and thus limits the overall access to justice.

Way forward:

● Feedback from the beneficiaries must be collected.

● Linkages must be created to other existing programmes like legal aid and pro-bono consulting to increase access to justice.

● Improvement in telecommunications and internet connectivity especially in remote areas to expand the footprint of the programme to remote areas.

●  Greater awareness of the programme must be spread especially among the vulnerable sections of society so that they can access justice.