The National Legal Services Authority and the Supreme Court Committee

Section 3(3) provides for a Member-Secretary, appointed by the Central Government in consultation with the Chief Justice of India, who exercises the powers and performs the duties the Executive Chairman may assign, on the prescribed terms. The Member-Secretary is the full-time officer who runs the organisation day to day; the Patron-in-Chief and Executive Chairman do not.

Section 3(4) lets the Central Government, in consultation with the Chief Justice of India, provide the officers and employees the Authority needs, and section 3(5) makes their conditions of service prescribed. Section 3(6) makes the administrative expenses payable out of the Consolidated Fund of India, and section 3(7) provides that all orders and decisions of the Central Authority shall be authenticated by the Member-Secretary or another authorised officer. Section 3(8) is the standard saving: no act or proceeding of the Central Authority is invalid merely because of a vacancy or a defect in its constitution.

Section 3A: the Supreme Court Legal Services Committee

Inserted by Act 59 of 1994, this Committee exists to do one thing: administer and implement the legal services programme in so far as it relates to the Supreme Court of India.

Its Chairman is a sitting Judge of the Supreme Court, nominated by the Chief Justice of India. Its other members have the experience and qualifications prescribed by the Central Government, and are nominated by the Chief Justice of India. It has a Secretary, appointed by the Chief Justice, with prescribed powers and functions, and its officers and employees are appointed by the Central Authority.

The distinction students miss is jurisdictional. A person who needs a lawyer to defend a criminal appeal in the Supreme Court is helped by this Committee, not by their own State Authority, because the case is in the Supreme Court.

Section 4: what NALSA actually does

Section 4 is the functions section, and it is the one worth knowing clause by clause, because it is where an examiner finds a question. The Central Authority shall perform all or any of the following functions, and the list runs through clause (m).

(a) Lay down policies and principles for making legal services available under the Act. This is the leading function and the one everything else serves.

(b) Frame the most effective and economical schemes for the purpose of making legal services available. Note "economical": the Act is realistic about money.

(c) Utilise the funds at its disposal and make appropriate allocations of funds to the State Authorities and District Authorities. NALSA is also the funder.

(d) Take necessary steps by way of social justice litigation with regard to consumer protection, environmental protection, or any other matter of special concern to the weaker sections of society, and for that purpose give training to social workers in legal skills.

Clause (d) is the surprising one and it is examinable: NALSA is expressly empowered to take steps by way of social justice litigation, which is public interest litigation by another name. That is a statutory bridge to Module IV's topic 4.2, and chapters 730 and 740 pick it up.

(e) Organise legal aid camps, especially in rural areas, slums or labour colonies, with the dual purpose of educating the weaker sections about their rights and encouraging the settlement of disputes through Lok Adalats.

(f) Encourage the settlement of disputes by way of negotiations, arbitration and conciliation. Notice that the legal aid statute itself directs the Authority towards the very methods this whole subject teaches. Module I is not a detour from ADR; it is part of it.

(g) Undertake and promote research in the field of legal services, with special reference to the need for such services among the poor.

(h) Do all things necessary for the purpose of ensuring commitment to the fundamental duties of citizens under Part IVA of the Constitution.

(i) Monitor and evaluate the implementation of the legal aid programmes at periodic intervals and provide for independent evaluation of programmes and schemes implemented in whole or in part by funds provided under the Act.

(j) Provide grants-in-aid for specific schemes to various voluntary social service institutions and the State and District Authorities, from out of the amounts placed at its disposal for the implementation of legal services schemes under the provisions of the Act.

(k) Develop, in consultation with the Bar Council of India, programmes for clinical legal education and promote guidance and supervise the establishment and working of legal services clinics in universities, law colleges and other institutions.

Clause (k) is the one that describes the course you are sitting. Clinical legal education, legal services clinics in law colleges: this is the statutory basis of the Bar Council's clinical papers, of which Alternate Dispute Resolution is one. Chapter 160 works through the legal services clinics themselves.

(l) Take appropriate measures for spreading legal literacy and legal awareness amongst the people and, in particular, to educate weaker sections of the society about the rights, benefits and privileges guaranteed by social welfare legislation and other enactments as well as administrative programmes and measures.

This clause is where MU's topic 1.5, "para legal training and legal literacy", finds its home in the Act.

(m) Make special efforts to enlist the support of voluntary social welfare institutions working at the grass-root level, particularly among the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, women and rural and urban labour.

Section 5: working with everybody else

Section 5 requires the Central Authority, in the discharge of its functions under the Act, to act in coordination with other governmental agencies, non-governmental voluntary social service institutions, universities and other bodies engaged in the work of promoting the cause of legal services to the poor, and it may issue such directions as it may think fit to those agencies.

It is a short section that answers a real problem. Legal aid touches prisons, police, hospitals, labour departments and district administration, none of which NALSA controls.

A worked example

Sunita is an agricultural labourer in a village in Beed district. She has not been paid the statutory minimum wage for four months, and nor have about sixty others working on the same land.

Which body helps her? Not NALSA directly. NALSA's job under section 4 is to lay down the policy and fund the work; the help itself comes from the District Legal Services Authority in Beed, and possibly the Taluk Legal Services Committee, which is chapter 60.

But NALSA's sections still shape what happens. The legal aid camp that reaches her village is organised under clause (e). The para-legal volunteer who tells her that non-payment of minimum wages is actionable is trained under clause (l) and under the Legal Services Clinics Regulations 2011. The scheme under which the District Authority pays for her lawyer is framed under clause (b) and funded under clause (c). If the sixty workers' claim raises a systemic problem with how the labour department is enforcing the Minimum Wages Act, clause (d) permits social justice litigation about it.

That is the honest picture of how the Act works: NALSA is not the body a poor litigant meets, it is the body that makes it possible for them to meet somebody.

What beginners get wrong

NALSA does not give legal aid to individuals. It lays down policy, frames schemes, allocates funds, monitors and evaluates. The delivery happens at the State, District and Taluk levels.

The Chief Justice of India is the Patron-in-Chief, not the Executive Chairman. The Executive Chairman is a serving or retired Supreme Court Judge nominated by the President in consultation with the Chief Justice. Getting these two the wrong way round is the commonest slip in an answer on section 3.

The Supreme Court Legal Services Committee is not a part of NALSA's tiers. It is a separate body under section 3A for Supreme Court matters, chaired by a sitting Supreme Court Judge.

Section 4 is not a list of aspirations. It is the source of NALSA's power to do anything at all. If NALSA does something, it is doing it under one of these clauses.

Quick revision

• Section 3: the Central Government shall constitute NALSA. Chief Justice of India is Patron-in-Chief; a serving or retired Supreme Court Judge, nominated by the President in consultation with the Chief Justice, is Executive Chairman; there is a Member-Secretary who runs it. Expenses come from the Consolidated Fund of India. A vacancy does not invalidate its acts.
• Section 3A: Supreme Court Legal Services Committee, chaired by a sitting Supreme Court Judge nominated by the Chief Justice, for legal services in the Supreme Court.
• Section 4: functions, clauses (a) to (m). The ones that carry marks are (a) policy, (b) schemes, (c) funds, (d) social justice litigation, (e) legal aid camps, (f) encourage negotiation, arbitration and conciliation, (k) clinical legal education and legal services clinics, and (l) legal literacy.
• Section 5: coordinate with other agencies, and it may issue directions to them.

Test yourself

1. Who is the Patron-in-Chief of NALSA, and who runs it? The Chief Justice of India is the Patron-in-Chief under section 3(2)(a). The Executive Chairman, under section 3(2)(b), is a serving or retired Judge of the Supreme Court nominated by the President in consultation with the Chief Justice. The Member-Secretary under section 3(3) is the full-time officer who runs it day to day.

2. A law college wants to set up a legal aid clinic. Which provision supports it? Section 4(k), which requires NALSA to develop, in consultation with the Bar Council of India, programmes for clinical legal education, and to promote, guide and supervise the establishment and working of legal services clinics in universities, law colleges and other institutions.

3. Can NALSA file a public interest petition? Section 4(d) empowers the Central Authority to take necessary steps by way of social justice litigation with regard to consumer protection, environmental protection, or any other matter of special concern to the weaker sections of society, and to give training to social workers in legal skills for that purpose.

4. A prisoner in Tihar Jail needs a lawyer for an appeal in the Supreme Court. Which body is responsible? The Supreme Court Legal Services Committee under section 3A, because its function is to administer and implement the legal services programme in so far as it relates to the Supreme Court.

5. Where does the money for NALSA's administrative expenses come from? Section 3(6): the administrative expenses of the Central Authority, including salaries, allowances and pensions of the Member-Secretary, officers and other employees, are paid out of the Consolidated Fund of India.