LEGAL AID CLINICS: IN NEED OF AID

An important way of introducing students to the practical application of laws, why are legal aid clinics of state law colleges faltering?

- Abhay Anand

Two years ago, the legal aid clinic at Allahabad University’s Faculty of Law was inaugurated with much fanfare – the Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court was present, along with the university’s Vice-Chancellor, Ratan Lal Hangloo, and other dignitaries. However, when Careers360 visited it on the afternoon of December 11, it was locked.

The administration said that it works off‚ and on. Students said the opposite – they have seen very little activity at the clinic. A final-year student of LLB, asking not to be named, said he “only saw the clinic being inaugurated two years ago”. He added: “Many senior advocates come and teach us who are also part of the legal aid programme and can do a lot to help, but I have not seen much happening here.”

The state of Allahabad University’s legal aid clinic, and the students’ experience, sum up the general apathy with which legal aid clinics in some of the best-known law colleges in the states are now treated.

But legal aid clinics are meant to serve a crucial function.

Role of legal aid clinics

The National Legal Services Authority, or NALSA, was established in 1995 to set up legal aid clinics and coordinate their activities. In 1997, the legal education regulator, Bar Council of India (BCI), made the study of legal aid and having a clinic compulsory for every law college. The clinic must be overseen by a senior faculty member, have an advocate appointed by state branch of NALSA and run by final-year students of law.