PROF. V. S. MALLAR MEMORIAL LEGAL AID COMPETITION, 2022
About The Legal Aid Competition
Access to legal education is a necessary corollary to the right of free legal aid. With the advance of digital technologies, this right has become all the more accessible. This being stated, limited access to digital technologies may stand as a barrier to the effective enforcement of this right. As a legal literacy dissemination agency, CEERA, NLSIU is endeavouring to ensure the spread of legal literacy and awareness not only through digital platforms but also through engagements with institutions at the ground level to achieve the visionary efforts of the Department of Justice. In this regard, the catalytic efforts of legal aid clinics and legal aid cells are key to ensuring dissemination of legal literacy at a grass-root level.
Legal aid clinics, particularly those functioning under the aegis of educational institutions, play a pivotal role in improving community access to legal information and education and in engaging the youth in mass literacy dissemination efforts. They serve as vital bridges in bridging the information asymmetry between public institutions and the general citizenry, especially with regard to the latter’s rights and entitlements. However, the state of affairs in India depicts the need for more impetus to tap into the potential of legal aid cells and clinics. At present, around 907 legal services clinics housed within law schools/ universities exist in India.[1] But the number of such cells and clinics which are functional or are actively involved in dissemination of legal literacy remains dismal. At this juncture, the Prof. V. S. Mallar Legal Aid Competition stands to provide an important platform to encourage active involvement of legal aid clinics with the community at large
The endeavor of the competition is to augment the activities of the legal aid cells across the country to spread essential legal awareness by conducting awareness drives and various other creative initiatives and campaigns to bring to the fore the presence of informational asymmetry contributing directly to the lack of legal awareness. This initiative shall encourage budding lawyers to explore creative means to disseminate legal awareness about the issues that they feel need to be addressed by the mainstream society. The competition is sought to serve as a unique platform for young changemakers to disseminate legal awareness through innovative means by identifying areas and target groups to ultimately create tangible legal awareness dissemination drives.
This initiative primarily aims at building on legal literacy across India that translates to spreading knowledge of a primary level in law. This is the need of hour as law students need to take the mantle of disseminating legal awareness and explore innovative ways to spread legal literacy. This endeavor shall culminate in the creation of a nation-wide movement that shall bring out issues that that were non-existent in the pre-pandemic world.
Structure Of The Competition
The Legal Aid Competition is envisioned for a long term and will be conducted over a span of 5 months. The key dissemination strategy in the competition should in accordance with the DISHA scheme of the Department of Justice. As the DISHA scheme rolled out by the Department of Justice envisages comprehensive, holistic and systematic solutions to access of justice, the Competition aims at furthering initiatives of the DoJ under its Access to Justice Programmes, which include:
- Tele Law
- Nyaya Mitra
- Nyaya Bandhy
- Legal Literacy and Awareness
The Competition shall comprise of six core deliverables which will include: (i) Street Plays; (ii) Jan-Sunwaii; (iii) Village Community Halts; (iv) Adalats; (v) Speed Mentoring; (vi) Final Report
- Street Plays:
Each participating team shall conduct 2 street plays in the regional language on the legal landscape of any of the following themes:
- Domestic Violence
- Child Abuse and Child Sexual Harassment
- Right to Education
- Child Marriage
- Rights of the elderly
The street plays shall be conducted in identified villages and shall be made available through video recordings. The objective of conducting street plays is to tap into the creativity of youth in appealing to citizenry through artistic performances. The street plays will be assessed on matrices such as creativity in performance, extent of involvement, issues targeted, impact and reach, range and expanse of legal literacy disseminated.
- Jun Sunwaii (Public Hearings)
The Jun Sunwaii or public hearing shall be conducted for targeted groups/communities. The objective of the Jun Sunwaii is to afford a platform for free and open discussion on the social, political and legal issues and concerns faced by the communicty and to identify and offer viable solutions that may address these issues.
The Jun Sunwaii shall be tested on the level of mobilization, crowd-sourcing, level of discussions, extent and quality of stakeholders involved, issues targeted, impact of the hearing and solutions provided.
- Village/Community Halts
The Village/Community Halts shall be conducted to spread awareness through spoken media and to gain personalized information of the socio-legal issues pervasive in rural India. This component shall include conducting surveys on the issues faced by the residents of the households in an identified village and the analysis of the legal solutions that may be offered to address the same. The effectiveness of the Community Halts shall be assessed on the quality of empirical survey, the assessment of the same, the reach and expanse of spreading legal awareness and the solutions offered. Each participating University will be required to provide a report on the activities conducted in the course of the Community Halt, along with video recordings of the same.
- Village Adalats
One village level Adalat shall be conducted as a way of offering speedy dispute resolution mechanisms for issues faced by residents of villages, towns or cities identified by the participants. The village adalats may include conducting negotiation or mediation sessions for minor legal issues and will be assessed on the outcome of the solutions offered.
- Speed- Mentoring
The speed mentoring program shall be conducted in 3 to 5 schools in identified villages or urban areas and shall be made available through video recordings. The focal point of this activity shall be to disseminate a brief, focused lecture within a given time frame on any of the contemporary socio-legal issues. The speed- mentoring will be assessed on matrices such as the extent of involvement, innovative techniques employed in creating literacy, the number of schools covered, and expanse of legal literacy disseminated. The topics for legal literacy dissemination shall be in tune with the focus areas identified by the Ministry of Law and Justice, which shall be limited to the following:
- Domestic Violence
- Child Abuse and Child Sexual Harassment
- Right to Education
- Child Marriage
- Rights of the elderly
- Final Report
Each participating team will be required to submit one final report by October 15th, 2022. The report shall include a cover page, table of contents, names of team members, a two-page executive summary and the final report shall not exceed 8,000 words excluding footnotes, annexures, pictures, if any. The hard copy of the report shall be accompanied by a video not exceeding 15 minutes depicting the activities undertaken and the extent of outreach created through these activities. The videos can be prepared in the regional language, but must be provided with English subtitles for assessment. The video and two-page executive summary of the winners and selected participating teams will be published and streamed on the CEERA websites and youtube channel.
The final report shall be submitted in doc/.docx format and pdf formats. The report shall be in Times New Roman font, font size 12 with 1.5 spacing.
The footnotes should be in Times New Roman, the font size 10 with 1.0 line spacing.
The alignment shall be justified with no page borders and a margin of 1 inch on each side.
The final report submitted by each participating team shall comprise of a declaration signed by the Head of the Department/Institution certifying the authenticity and originality of the work.
Committee of Elavuators
Chairpersons
- Shri Shailesh Shrivastava, Director (Access to Justice and Legal Aid to the Poor), Department of Justice, Government of India
- Smt. Shanti V. Mallar, Ex- DGM, Vijaya Bank and Director, Archidply Industries Ltd.
- (Dr.) Nigam Nuggehalli, Registrar, National Law School of India University, Bengaluru.
- (Dr.) Nirmal Kanti Chakrabarti, Vice Chancellor, West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences
- (Dr.) S Shanthakumar, Director, Gujarat National Law University, Gandhinagar.
- (Dr.) K C Sunny, Vice Chancellor, National University of Advanced Legal Studies, Kochi.
- (Dr.) M K Ramesh, Former IC/VC and Professor of Law, National Law School of India University, Bengaluru.
Co-Chairpersons And Jury Members
- (Dr.) M R K Prasad, Professor of Law, V M Salgaocar College of Law.
- (Dr.) Anirban Chakraborty, Associate Professor of Law, NALSAR University of Law.
- (Dr.) Yogesh Pratap Singh, Professor of Law, National Law University, Odisha.
Competition Panel Coordinators
- (Dr.) Gigimon V S, Associate Professor and Head of the Department (Law) Mar Gregorios College of Law
- (Dr.) Sachin Tripathi, Assistant Professor of Law, Symbiosis Law School, Nagpur
- (Dr.) Bishwa Kallyan Dash, Assistant Professor of Law, KIIT School of Law, Bhubaneshwar, Odisha
- (Dr.) Anjali Thanvi, Assistant Professor of Law, National Law University, Jodhpur
- Mrs. Uma Ramu Sandhya, Assistant Professor of Law, SCAB Law College, Raichur
- (Dr.) Satyadeep Singh, Advocate, Patna High Court
- Mr. Vivek Shukla, Advocate, Allahabad High Court
Registration
WHO CAN REGISTER FOR THE COMPETITION?
The Legal Aid Competition is open to all legal aid Clinics/committees housed in any educational institute.
Last Date to Register: June 15th, 2022.
TEAM COMPOSITION
The representatives of the participating university for all purposes and for the entire duration of the competition shall comprise of the following:
- 1 Faculty Coordinator/Advisor
- 1 Student Coordinator
- Maximum of 08 other students, who will form the Core Team
REGISTRATION FEE
The registration fee for a team is INR 4,000 (Rupees Four Thousand Only).
Institutions interested in participating in the competition may register by filling in the google form, the link for which is attached below
CLARIFICATIONS AND QUERIES
All registered institutions will be provided with further details of the competition at the launch of the competition. The launch will be conducted via the ZOOM App on July 1st, 2022. Registered institutions will be shared with a zoom link to join the launch of the competition, details of which will be shared in due course.
AWARDS AND PRIZES
The following cash prizes along with citation shall be awarded at the end of competition
Winners – Best Legal Aid Clinic – INR 25,000
First Runners Up – Best Legal Aid Clinic – INR 20,000
Second Runners Up – Best Legal Aid Clinic – INR 15,000
Best Rural Legal Aid Clinic – INR 15,000
Best Faculty Coordinator Award – INR 10,000
Best All India Legal Aid Clinic Student Lawyer – INR 10,000
Click here for the Brochure
[1] Statistical Information in respect of Legal Service Clinics, December 2021, National Legal Service Authority of India, <https://nalsa.gov.in/statistics/legal-service-clinics-report/legal-service-clinics-april-2021-to-december-2021 >