New Delhi: The Central Department of Justice has released its first booklet under the title ‘Tele-Law – Reaching the Unreached, Voices of the Beneficiaries’ to commemorate the visit of its tele-law program. It is a captivating readable collection of real-life stories of beneficiaries and legal aid given to them to resolve disputes under the tele-law program. These types of disputes affect daily life. Presently, more than 3 lakh beneficiaries in geographically inaccessible and remote areas have been provided legal advice through 260 districts (including 115 aspirational districts) and 29,860 CSCs in 29 states and union territories under this program.
This readable booklet highlights the role of paralegal volunteers and rural level entrepreneurs in educating and encouraging villagers to seek legal advice as an essential component of legal aid. It successfully breaks the fears and myths of the common man in settling their disputes through alternative dispute mechanisms. In very simple stories it exposes 6 categories including the fight against injustice, settlement of property disputes, relief of Kovid victims, empowerment with information, dealing with procedural hurdles and action against domestic exploitation.
As part of the ‘Digital India Vision’ of the Government of India, the Department of Justice is using ’emerging’ and ‘indigenous’ digital platforms to accelerate the program and make everyone’s access to justice real. To fulfill this objective, the Tele-Law Program was launched in the year 2017 so that disputes can be settled at the pre-litigation stage. Under this program, smart technology, telephone / instant calling etc. facilities are available for video conferencing under the wide network of common service centers at the panchayat level. These facilities are used to connect poor, downtrodden, vulnerable, remote groups and communities with panel lawyers so that they can be given timely and valuable legal advice.
A cadre of leading volunteers provided by CSC-E GOV and NALSA, a tele-law service specially designed to facilitate early detection, intervention and prevention of legal disputes, to groups and communities It reaches. These grassroots warriors are equipped with a mobile application for registration and appointment of applicants during activities in their area. A group of dedicated lawyers have been deployed to provide continuous legal advice and counseling to the beneficiaries. The rich IEC has been uploaded on its public portal which can be accessed at https://www.tele-law.in. A separate dashboard has been designed to capture data in real time and see the nature of the advice provided. In the near future, the data is also being put on the PMO Prayers Portal to ensure detailed details at the district level.
The Department of Justice will continue to publish such transformative and empowering stories on a quarterly basis to aspire to cover all districts of the country and to establish tele-law as a wonderful pillar under the legal aid chain.
Also read in Hindi: न्याय विभाग की पहली पुस्तिका का ई-संस्करण ‘रीचिंग द अनरिच्ड – वॉइसेज ऑफ द बेनिफिसिएरीज’ जारी