Judges of the Supreme Court on Saturday hailed the success of Lok Adalats in delivering justice in the country’s remotest corners.
“We have completed 25 years of legal services aid in this country,” Justice U U Lalit said here, adding that it has been a learning period to the judges too.
He was addressing the first All India District Legal Services Authorities Meet organised by the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA).
The meeting dwelt on the implementation of a unified process across the country for providing effective legal aid to marginalised and poor people.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the chief guest at the event. Chief Justice N V Ramana, Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju and Justice D Y Chandrachud were also present.
Justice Lalit hailed the success of Lok Adalats “and the kind of awareness programme we could initiate, propagate”.
“The idea was to reach every village in the country at least thrice in a period of 42 days. We covered in those 42 days 19.5 lakhs.
“We want to have a legal aid defence counsel system. To start with, we have selected 350 districts.
“In the second phase we will complete the entire process. These 350 districts also comprise of 112 aspirational districts.
“Every district legal services authority shall be now equipped with e-library. The office will function as a nodal office… What we chart out today will be for 2047.”
Justice Chandrachud said 1.78 crore cases have been disposed off by virtual courts.
