BENGALURU: Supreme Court judge Justice BV Nagarathna on Saturday called for a structured mechanism to provide women with immediate legal aid following an incident, including through police stations and hospitals.
She also raised concerns over recent amendments in Karnataka that have curtailed the High Court’s jurisdiction to hear regular first appeals. Speaking at the two-day South Zone Regional Conference on “Justice for Women”, organised by the National Commission for Women in association with the High Court of Karnataka and Karnataka Judicial Academy, Justice Nagarathna said legal aid should be accessible through coordination between state legal services authorities, police stations, primary health centres and government hospitals.
Citing National Legal Services Authority data, she said 4,14,795 women availed legal aid between April 2025 and March 2026. She stressed that the effectiveness of legal aid should be assessed based on outcomes rather than merely the number of beneficiaries.
Justice Nagarathna, who is Chairperson of the Supreme Court Legal Services Committee, also called for the availability of paralegal volunteers at short notice. Flagging Karnataka’s amended laws, she said the Karnataka Civil Courts Amendment Act, 2023 and Karnataka High Court Amendment Act, 2023 had “denuded” the High Court of its jurisdiction over regular first appeals.
Under the amended system, appeals against judgments and decrees passed by Civil Judges (Senior Division) lie before district courts instead of the High Court. She questioned how women facing adverse findings on questions of fact, including property disputes, would be able to approach the Supreme Court under Article 136. Justice Nagarathna urged the state government and Advocate General to rectify and repeal the provision, saying it could put Karnataka’s women litigants at a disadvantage.
She also called for interim victim compensation to ordinarily be provided at the charge-sheet stage to help victims meet medical and legal expenses. She further highlighted the rise in cybercrime complaints involving women, from around 50,000 in 2024 to nearly 80,000 this year. She stressed the need to prevent revictimisation and sensitise judicial officers to stereotypes, prejudices and the language used during trials.