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Paper Title

LEGAL AID AS A TOOL FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE: RHETORIC, REALITY, AND REFORM IN THE INDIAN CONTEXT

Article Identifiers

Registration ID: IJNRD_313443

Published ID: IJNRD2603253

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Keywords

legal aid, access to justice, social justice, Legal Services Authorities Act, NALSA, undertrial prisoners, India

Abstract

In its complete sense legal aid is not a charitable gift of the State to people who are in need of lawyers- it is a structural precondition of any justice system, which wishes to be a fair one. The constitutional pledge of equal justice and free legal aid enshrined in Article 39A and donned with the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987, in India has created a rich institutional structure: national and state legal services authorities, district legal aid panels, Lok Adalats, para-legal volunteers, legal literacy camps all over India. Even the groups most desperately intended to receive legal assistance: the rural poor, the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe groups, women facing domestic violence, labourers in the unorganized sector, undertrial prisoners, report either that the system is not available, or that is inadequate when they do. This paper aims to critically analyze the legal aid in India as the means of promoting social justice. It looks at the constitutional and legislative underpinnings of legal aid, explores the structural and cultural obstacles that limit its access, and makes the argument that the divide between the discourse about the equal justice and its practical implementation stems from not only a lack of resources but also a failure to structure legal aid in accordance with the needs of the people it is supposedly benefiting. The paper also ends with some reform recommendations that would help redress the legal aid system by transforming it into a much more transformative social institution rather than a mere entitlement.

How To Cite (APA)

Divyajeet Singh & Dr. Neelesh Sharma (March-2026). LEGAL AID AS A TOOL FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE: RHETORIC, REALITY, AND REFORM IN THE INDIAN CONTEXT. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF NOVEL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT, 11(3), c442-c447. https://ijnrd.org/papers/IJNRD2603253.pdf

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Other Publication Details

Paper Reg. ID: IJNRD_313443

Published Paper Id: IJNRD2603253

Research Area: Other area not in list

Author Type: Indian Author

Country: Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India

Published Paper PDF: https://ijnrd.org/papers/IJNRD2603253.pdf

Published Paper URL: https://ijnrd.org/viewpaperforall?paper=IJNRD2603253

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Publication Timeline

Paper Submission
08-03-2026
Peer Review
Through Scholar9.com Platform
Paper Acceptance
15-03-2026
Paper Publication
18-03-2026

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