BENGALURU: Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka, Judge of Supreme Court, on Friday said that it is absolutely necessary to have large scale legal literacy programmes at all levels of society to create awareness about provisions of law, criminal law in particular, as even educated citizens criticise the judges on social media when a judge grants bail or acquittal, without realising how the justice delivery system works.
He was delivering the valedictory address at the silver jubilee celebrations of Karnataka State Legal Services Authority (KSLSA) held at Karnataka Judicial Academy in city.
He said that there is a complete lack of knowledge about the justice delivery system in the country. Without realising how the justice delivery system works, “we face a lot of criticism. In this area, we need to work more, not only members of the Bar but also para legal volunteers, to create awareness”, he said.
Lauding the works done by the the KSLSA on various public interest issues, Justice Oka said that the Legal Services Authorities (LSAs) are under obligation to ensure the commitment to fundamental rights under Article 51A of the Constitution of India, as so far no measures have been taken by them on this issue.
He said that twelve former high court judges were given responsibilities of implementing various schemes of NALSA and government in the state. Now time has come to see that through the LSAs, such disputes which are not normally settled before the courts are settled. These include commercial suites, matrimonial suites, partition suites, specific performance suites which consume a lot of time of the court. Hence, KALSA can switch to such cases and give more relief to litigants and judiciary as a whole, he said.