Tele-Law: Indian Government’s initiative to provide legal aid easily to Rural India

Tele-Law service

Remember the one of the superb dialogs of Akshay Kumar in Jolly LLB 2 – I’ll see you in court. This one line defines many things.

Jolly LLB 2
Jolly LLB 2

But, the question arises, if you don’t know the ABCD of court, how do you see someone in court?

If you do not get right advice at right time and at right place, then what you do? It’s very helpless situation for anyone who go through from these circumstances & unwillingly trap themselves in the black hole of frauds.

To solve this BIG ISSUE, the Indian Government has launched Tele-Law initiative to provide legal-aid services to citizens living in rural areas and marginalized communities.

For this Nobel cause, the Ministry of Law and Justice has partnered with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to provide legal aid services through its Common Service Centres (CSC) at the Panchayat level spread across the country.

How Tele-Law will be helpful for people?

The Tele-Law will enable people to seek legal advice from lawyers through video conferencing available at the Common Service Centres (CSC).

How Tele-Law works?

Through Common Service Centre (CSC) network of ‘Tele-Law’ portal, the citizens will be connected to legal service providers with the help of technology enabled platforms.

  • Every CSC will engage a Para Legal Volunteer (PLV).
  • Para Legal Volunteer (PLV): The PLV volunteer will be the first point of contact for the rural citizens and will help them in understanding the legal issues, explain the advice given by lawyers and assist in further action required in cases as per the advice of the lawyer.
  • Approx 1000 Women PLVs will be trained and work for mainstreaming legal aid services through the CSCs.

READ MORE: Supreme Court of India (SCI) ICMIS digital filing system: A move towards Digital Court

How will applicant connect with the lawyer?

The Para Legal Volunteers (PLVs) will help the applicant connect with a lawyer through the video conferencing facility at the CSC and will keep a track of the progress of the applicants’ cases and grievances and maintain a record.

They will also submit the records maintained to the District Legal Service Authority every week.

Note: The National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) will provide a panel of lawyers from State capitals, who will be available through video conferencing to provide legal advice and counselling to the applicants, across the 1000 Common Service Centres (CSC).

First phase of Tele-Law scheme

In the first phase, the ‘Tele-Law’ scheme will be tested as a pilot basis across 500 Common Service Centres (CSC) in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar to understand the challenges and make necessary corrections to the scheme before it is scaled up and rolled out across the country in a phased manner.

READ MORE: Link Aadhaar with PAN: e-facility launched by Income Tax Department

Who will connect with Tele-Law?

Law school clinics, District Legal Service Authorities, voluntary service providers and Non-Government Organisations working on legal aid and empowerment can connected through the CSCs anywhere and anytime, in order to strengthen access to justice for the marginalised communities.

Megha Jain

Engg & Freelance Author

Straight forward