The National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) intends to establish legal aid clinics, akin to primary health centres, in every taluk of the country for providing solution to various legal problems faced by people from all sections of society, according to its Chairman and Supreme Court Judge Altamas Kabir.
Inaugurating a Mega Lok Adalat at the Madras High Court Bench here on Saturday exclusively for cheque bounce cases pending in lower courts across the State, he said that the aim of setting up legal aid clinics was to make people aware of their legal rights and assist them in obtaining their basic requirements such as ration cards and job cards. “We are also thinking in terms of social justice litigation… We can do it only with the support of the entire legal fraternity. Unless the Bar and the Bench cooperate, nothing will function in court halls. By being judges, we have not become Gods, we are two sides of the same coin,” he said. The Judge also sought the cooperation of lawyers for various initiatives of NALSA.
Mr. Justice Kabir commended the Chief Justice of Madras High Court, M. Yusuf Eqbal, for attempting to reduce backlog of cases through innovative ideas such as establishment of holiday courts. “The backlog was like a pressure cooker with pressure building up and just waiting to explode. The safety valve that stopped it from exploding was the Alternative Dispute Resolution,” he said.
In his presidential address, Mr. Justice Eqbal appreciated subordinate judiciary in the State for disposing of more number of cases compared to other States. He pointed out that so far a total of 5,17,406 cases were disposed of through various programmes, including Lok Adalat, conducted by the Tamil Nadu Legal Services Authority (TNLSA), of which he was the patron-in-chief.
A total of 1.35 lakh accident cases were pending in the lower courts in the State. Of these, many were settled in the last few months through Lok Adalat. Similarly, 1.5 lakh cheque bounce cases were pending in the State compared to just 2,300 in the Union Territory of Puducherry.
Delivering a special address, High Court Judge and chairman of TNLSA Elipe Dharma Rao recalled that the offence of cheque bounce was initially a non-compoundable offence. It was changed to be a compoundable offence, thereby paving way for settlement of disputes through talks.
He recalled that the TNLSA had recently helped 500 tribal children in The Nilgiris district receive their birth certificates.
