CEERA NLSIU Bangalore with the Department of Justice, Government of India is conducting the Prof VS Mallar Memorial Legal Aid Competition 2022.
About the Legal Aid Competition by NLSIU
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.
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.
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: DISHA Scheme (Tele Law, Nyaya Bandhu, Nyaya Mitra, Legal Literacy and Awareness).
The Competition shall comprise of six core deliverables which will include:
Street Plays: Each participating team shall conduct 2 street plays in the regional language on the legal landscape of any of the following themes:
The street plays shall be conducted in identified villages and shall be made available through video recordings. 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 community 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 Village/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 team will be required to provide a report on the activities conducted in the course of the Village/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:
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 twopage 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 twopage executive summary of the winners and selected participating teams will be published and streamed on the CEERA websites and youtube channel.
Submission Guidelines for the Final Report
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The final report shall be submitted in doc/.docx format and pdf formats.
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The report shall be in Times New Roman font, font size 12 with 1.5 spacing.
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The footnotes should be in Times New Roman, the font size 10 with 1.0 line spacing.
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The alignment shall be justified with no page borders and a margin of 1 inch on each side.
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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.
Eligibility
The Legal Aid Competition is open to all legal aid clinics/committees housed in any educational institute.
Team Composition
The representatives of the participating university for all purposes and for the entire duration of the competition shall comprise of the following:
How to Register?
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Registration Fee: For a team – INR 4,000/-
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Click here to register for the Legal Aid Competition 2022.
Registration Deadline
June 15, 2022
Important Dates
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Announcement of the Competition: May 15, 2022
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Last date for Registration: June 15, 2022
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Launch of the Competition: July 1, 2022
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Submission of Final Report: October 15, 2022
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Announcement of Awards and Felicitation programme: November 26, 2022
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 1, 2022.
The 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
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Winners – Best Legal Aid Clinic: INR 25,000
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First Runners Up – Best Legal Aid Clinic: INR 20,000
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Second Runners Up – Best Legal Aid Clinic: INR 15,000
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Best Rural Legal Aid Clinic: INR 15,000
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Best Faculty Coordinator Award: INR 10,000
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Best All India Legal Aid Clinic Student Lawyer: INR 10,000
For more information, click here.
