Government has launched ‘Tele Law’ service to provide legal aid for the people living in rural areas through video conferencing. The service has been launched to make legal aid easily accessible to the marginalized communities and citizens living in rural areas. The Ministry of Law and Justice partnered with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology will provide legal aid services through its Common Service Centres, CSC at the panchayat level, spread across the country.
Launching the service IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said, the legal aid through Tele-Law will fulfill the government’s commitment to ensure access to justice and empowerment of the poor.
Under the scheme, the Tele-Law portal will be available across the CSC network connecting the citizens to legal service providers. The portal will connect law school clinics, District Legal Service Authorities, voluntary service providers and Non-Government Organisations working on legal through the CSCs. The National Legal Services Authority’s panel of lawyers from state capitals will also provide legal advice.
In the first phase, the Tele-Law scheme will be tested as a pilot across 1000 CSCs in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.