New Delhi, Jul 31 (PTI) Supreme Court judge Justice UU Lalit on Sunday said legal services institutions have to bridge the gap of trust deficit among the common people towards them and for this, an innovative legal aid defence counsel system is being formulated.

Justice Lalit, who is the executive chairman of the National Legal Services Authorities (NALSA), said the legal services institutions have the requisite ability since they have reached 9.5 lakh villages in the country to raise awareness to dispense legal aid services.

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He said these institutions have tremendous strength, power and efforts that have to be channelised and a recent outreach programme has succeeded in reaching every soul in the country.

Justice Lalit, who is next in line to become the chief justice of India, said the required awareness has been created now and the next step is to dispense legal aid by ensuring that the quality of the legal aid services remains intact.

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"The trust deficit that still persists needs to be bridged. To bridge this gap, the Legal Aid Defence Counsel System is being formulated, wherein the lawyers engaged will deal only with the matter of legal aid and thus, would we dedicated solely to this noble cause," he said, adding that for this purpose, young and talented lawyers should be pooled so that this office becomes the backbone of the system and functions as a nodal point.

Speaking at the valedictory session of the first All India District Legal Services Authorities Meet, Justice Lalit applauded the collaborative effort of the NALSA and the Ministry of Law, wherein the two will work on the Tele-Law and Nyaya Bandhu mobile applications, which will help in constant monitoring of the services provided by the legal aid counsels and solve the problem of implementation.

He suggested that every law college in the country should adopt at least three talukas and encourage the penultimate and final-year students to enrol as para-legal volunteers.

Addressing the gathering, Supreme Court judge Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul urged everyone to utilise the tools available within the system to the best of their potential.

He asked the DLSA members to inculcate the spirit of thinking out of the box and said this could be achieved through active interaction among the stakeholders.

Justice Kaul said the entire judicial system needs a bypass and that there should be an endeavour to close litigation at the first stage itself.

"The judges and the defence system must consciously make available the use of the plea-bargaining system," he said.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)