Article 39A

Background and evolution

Access to justice in India has long been limited by costs, complex procedures and lack of awareness. Committees chaired by Justice V. R. Krishna Iyer (1973) and Justice P. N. Bhagwati (1977) recommended legal aid programmes. The 42nd Amendment of 1976 added Article 39A to the Directive Principles to give constitutional status to legal aid.

Courts soon linked legal aid to fundamental rights. In Hussainara Khatoon (1979), concerning thousands of undertrial prisoners in Bihar, the Supreme Court held that free legal services are an essential part of a "reasonable, fair and just" procedure under Article 21. In Khatri v. State of Bihar (1981) and Suk Das v. Union Territory of Arunachal Pradesh (1986), it held that the State must provide a lawyer to indigent accused persons, and that failure to inform them of this right could vitiate a trial.

Key features and provisions

• Text: the State shall secure that the operation of the legal system promotes justice, on a basis of equal opportunity, and shall, in particular, provide free legal aid, by suitable legislation or schemes or in any other way, to ensure that opportunities for securing justice are not denied to any citizen by reason of economic or other disabilities.
• Two goals: equal justice and free legal aid.
• Means: legislation, schemes or other methods.
• Implementation: the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987, in force from 1995, created NALSA, State Legal Services Authorities, District Legal Services Authorities and Taluk Legal Services Committees.
• Eligibility (Section 12): women and children, SCs and STs, victims of trafficking and disasters, persons with disabilities, industrial workers, people in custody, and those below income limits.
• Lok Adalats: the Act gives statutory status to Lok Adalats, whose awards are final and binding, with no appeal.