In news– The Union Minister of Law and Justice has recently announced during the 18th All India Legal Services Meet at Jaipur that Tele-Law service is being made free of cost for citizens in the country from 2022.
About Tele-Law service-
- Tele-Law means the use of communications and information technology for the delivery of legal information and advice.
- Tele–Law mainstreams legal aid to the marginalized seeking legal help by connecting them with the Panel Lawyers through the tele/video-conferencing infrastructure available at Common Service Centres (CSCs) across 1 lakh Gram Panchayats.
- For easy and direct access Tele- Law Mobile Application (both Android and IoS) was launched in 2021 and it is presently available in 22 scheduled languages.
- Benefitting from this digital revolution, Tele-Law has widened the outreach of legal services to 20 Lakh + beneficiaries in just five years.
- During the event, the Department of Justice, Ministry of Law & Justice and National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) exchanged Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Integrated Delivery of Legal Services.
- Under the provision of the MoU, NALSA would provide the services of 700 lawyers, in each district exclusively for the Tele-Law program.
- These empanelled lawyers would now also act as referral lawyers and also assist in strengthening the mechanism for dispute avoidance and dispute resolution at the pre-litigation stage.
- NALSA through its SLSAs(state level) and DLSAs(District level) is already working in this regard through Under Trial Review Committee (UTRCs) by making available free legal aid/legal counsel to the undertrials.
- The Tele-Law initiative was launched on April 20, 2017 in collaboration with The Department of Justice, Ministry of Law and Justice & the Ministry of Electronics & IT (MeitY) with an aim to provide legal advice in the villages through CSCs.
Source: PIB
