Contribution of Law Commissions in framing the mechanism of Legal Aid in India

Abstract

After the independence of India, it was a great challenge to ensure justice for all citizens due to constitutional mandate. The main aspiration of the framers of the constitution was to build confidence among the citizens regarding justice. It was the reason behind the adoption of the term justice in the preamble of the constitution. The central government had appointed a number of Law Commissions to find out a suitable mechanism for ensuring equal accessibility of justice among all its citizens. The government of Bombay and the government of West Bengal appointed two committees namely Mr. Justice Bhagwati Committee and Sri Arthur Trevor Harries committee respectively to frame some mechanism to provide legal aid to the needy poor litigants. The first government of India appointed a Law Commission known as the 14th law commission, under the chairmanship of Mr. M.C. Setalvad, emphasized the fact that a modern welfare state had to accept the obligation to provide legal aid to the poor persons and persons of limited means through the execution of the recommendations of Mr. Justice Bhagwati Committee and Sri Arthur Trevor Harries committee. After the 14th law commission, the government of India appointed another law commission to get the review on the existing provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The government of India appointed the 41st law commission under the chairmanship of K.V.K. Sundaram in which it was recommended that some provisions should be introduced in the Code of Criminal Procedure to provide legal aid to the accused in all sessions court at the expenses of the State and for enabling the State Government to extend such rights. After this 14th Law Commission’s report 48th Law Commission’s report was published which pointed out that representation by a counsel is a basic ingredient in a criminal trial. Another law commission report was published viz. ‘Processual Justice to The People’in which it was elaborately described about the mechanism to provide legal aid in Civil and Criminal cases as well as for the working class and recommended to formulate a separate mechanisms regarding legal aid for the Schedule Tribe, Schedule Caste, women, children, other disabled groups and other minorities. In the 42nd amendment of the constitution, Article 39-A was was inserted in 1976 and Legal Services Authorities Act-1987 was enacted. 131st law commission report was published on the Role of the Legal Profession to recommend about the duty of the state to legislate suitable enactments or schemes or to find out any other way for securing justice to all since the legal profession is a monopoly to the state.