Lucknow, June 22: The Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh has implemented the Legal Aid Defence Counsel System (LADCS) for a two-year period under the Uttar Pradesh State Legal Services Authority to provide free legal assistance to the people of the state and to resolve minor disputes among them by working out a compromise formula.
According to authorities here on Thursday, the goal of adopting LADCS is to improve court-based legal services in order to offer effective and competent legal help to the disadvantaged and vulnerable segments of society.
The state government has urged the people to take use of this system so that they can receive legal aid in criminal cases similar to the public defender system.
Legal help will be offered to the general public through the LADCS system at the levels of chief, deputy, and assistant counsel.
LADCS will provide qualified criminal defence attorneys with high-quality representation. Members of the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (SC&ST) may profit from this.
Furthermore, people who have been harmed by illegal activities committed by individuals might directly gain from it. LADCS will benefit a wide range of people, including women, daughters, and children who are victims in the state, people with disabilities such as blindness, leprosy, deafness, mental weakness, and so on, as well as nomadic people, industrial workers, juvenile delinquents (boys up to the age of 18), and people in custody.
Individuals affected by calamities, caste violence, class-based discrimination, floods, droughts, earthquakes, or industrial disasters, mentally ill individuals admitted to a safe house, mental hospital, or nursing home, and individuals with an annual income of less than Rs 3,00,000/- will also be eligible.
LADCS primarily serves to give legal help in criminal matters in districts or at headquarters. It covers representation, trial, and appeals in all sessions, special, magistrate, and executive courts.
Furthermore, it enables for the provision of legal advice and support to individuals appearing in District Court/office for their defence, to individuals in the pre-arrest stage under the NALSA system, and to individuals in the post-arrest, bail, trial, and filing of appeals in criminal cases at the remand stage.
