Constitutional Promise vs. Harsh Reality: Legal Aid in India’s Budget Priorities

Introduction

It is not just an aspirational slogan in India that is called access to justice for all, but it is a constitutional requirement. In the Constitution, Article 39A holds that the State should offer free legal assistance in such a way that the economic or social disadvantage never denies any citizen access to justice. This direction was to be realised by the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987, which institutionalised free legal aid by creating State and District Legal Services Authorities. This is a promise which, in reality, is ruined by a much more bitter fact. The legal aid provided in India has an insignificant amount of funds allocated to it, to such an extent that it does not even appear as a line item in the Union Budget. This divide between the statement and the fact reveals the way in which the State still regards legal aid as a figurative duty instead of a cornerstone of a democratic legal framework.

The Constitutional Vision of Legal Aid

The Indian Constitution framers realised that justice should not be based on one's financial capability. They realized that a legal regime that gives preference to people who are able to afford it compromises the principle of equality and fairness itself. In order to protect this principle, Article 39A was added to the Constitution, which required the State to offer free legal assistance so that the possibility of obtaining justice was not deprived of any citizen on the grounds of economic or social disadvantage. This clause is directly connected with the general constitutional protection of equality before the law in Article 14 and the right to life and personal liberty in Article 21, and hence makes legal aid part of the Indian vision of a fair and inclusive society. The Supreme Court of India has been instrumental over the years in providing a practical interpretation to this constitutional promise. In Hussainara Khatoon v. State of Bihar (1979), the Court pointed out that the free legal services are not a welfare measure but a necessity in the process of procedure, which is reasonable, fair, and just in accordance with Article 21. This case is the result of the plight of undertrial prisoners who were languishing in Bihar jails for a long period and had no access to legal representation. The Court made a statement that the right to legal assistance in a fair trial is inseparable; this means that the concept of procedural justice is not exclusive to the wealthy but applies to everyone, especially to the marginalised. This vision was even broadened by the Court in Khatri v. State of Bihar (1981). A State has the duty to render legal assistance as soon as an individual has been accused of a crime, although they are not taken to court. This proactive interpretation will provide the right to a fair trial to a person at the very outset of a legal process and will prevent possible examples of miscarriages of justice due to the absence of representation. In Suk Das v. Union Territory of Arunachal Pradesh (1986), the Court further reinforced that failure to provide free legal aid to an accused at State expense results in a violation of Article 21. Similarly, in M.H. Hoskot v. State of Maharashtra (1978), the Court held that the right to free legal services is an essential element of reasonable, fair, and just procedure.

All these provisions on constitutional provisions and judicial pronouncements render India one of the nations that have the most comprehensive provisions on legal assistance. The vision does not just include the hypothetical assurances, but it is the tangible dedication to make sure that justice is indeed available to all citizens,  regardless of their social and economic status.

The Budgetary Neglect

The hustle starts when principles are confronted with economic interests. The legal aid system in India is run by the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) and state and district legal institutions. However, the amount of money that is allocated is trivial. As an example, over the last years, the NALSA budget has bounced at a few hundred crores, which is by no means sufficient to cater to a population of 1.4 billion. In perspective, legal aid in India is funded at less than 0.1 percent of the justice budget, as compared with such countries as the UK or Canada, which invest hundreds of millions a year in providing proper legal representation to the needy. The underfunding of legal aid in India has a number of direct and adverse impacts. To begin with, inadequate pay to legal aid lawyers deters competent lawyers from taking cases. The payment of honorariums by panel lawyers is often extremely low, and payment delays, together with low incentives, mean that the system will be reliant on overworked or less motivated lawyers.Secondly, there is poor training and supervision that affects the quality of representation. Most of the panel lawyers are not well-versed in matters like gender-based violence, juvenile justice, or cybercrime due to the lack of proper funding to support their ongoing legal training. The issue is also compounded by weak supervision mechanisms, and in some cases, the legal aid lawyers do not even attend court or give substantive help.Thirdly, due to a poor awareness campaign, millions of potential beneficiaries are not aware of their right to free legal aid. There are sporadic and under-funded legal literacy initiatives in rural settings, which have created a critical access disconnect, as the individuals who most require this assistance are unaware of where they could find it. Lastly, the Lok adalats, para-legal volunteers, and legal aid clinics are overworked. These agencies have skeletal staff and minimal infrastructure to handle a high number of cases, leading to pending conflicts and delays in the delivery of justice.

Justice Denied: The Ground Reality:

Although the law has a strong constitution to provide legal assistance, the situation on the ground portrays the opposite picture. A lack of meaningful access to justice has been imposed on the most vulnerable groups in India due to chronic underfunding and poor infrastructure. The undertrials are over 70 percent of the total prison population in the country, most of whom are languishing in jail for years without being convicted due to an inability to hire competent lawyers. According to the National Crime Records Bureau Prison Statistics India 2022, this extended jail time does not just infringe their basic rights, but it is also a blowback of compromising the principle of innocence until proven guilty; the criminal justice system has become an instrument of structural injustice. It is the invisible who are marginalised and made to suffer the failure. Dalits, Adivasis, women, and migrant workers are more impacted because they stand the least chance of obtaining quality legal counsel using the State-provided mechanisms. These are exacerbated by social stigma, illiteracy, and geographical remoteness, resulting in these groups being in a loop of legal inactivity. This failure to have timely, efficient legal assistance often leads to false convictions, extended imprisonment, and general mistrust of the justice system by the most disadvantaged groups. In Sheela Barse v. State of Maharashtra (1983), the Supreme Court highlighted the plight of women prisoners and reiterated that the right to legal aid is part of Article 21, emphasising the need to extend protection to vulnerable groups. This has technically developed a two-tier justice system in India. There are those who, by virtue of wealth, can hire the services of skilled attorneys and immediate legal representation, and on the other hand, there are those who must use an underfunded, understaffed, and overstretched legal aid machine. This difference is not simply a failure on the part of the administration; it is a betrayal of the Constitution itself, compromising the very notion of equality and justice that Articles 14, 21, and 39A are aimed at ensuring. Unless the funding, outreach, and quality of the legal aid services are urgently reformed, the vision of equitable access to justice is going to stay mostly a dream.

Why Underfunding Persists

The legal aid has been overlooked in the budgetary allocations, which can be attributed to the following three factors:

1. Perception Problem

   
   

    Legal aid is sometimes portrayed as something given out to the poor as a form of handout and not as an essential part of democracy and the rule of law. This puts this in an insignificant frame. Even though roads, bridges, and digital infrastructure are glorified as nation-building, legal assistance is turned down as charity. In fact, legal aid is no charity; it is a constitutional right and a guarantee of equality before the law (Article 14) and personal liberty (Article 21). The State is compromising its own internal promise to justice by underfunding it.

   
   
   
   

2. Lack of Political Incentive

   
   

    Democratic politics is motivated by visibility and electoral dividends. Law services have a substantial role in serving the marginalized communities, such as prisoners, daily-wage workers, women in abusive marriages, and victims of caste discrimination. They are mostly politically disempowered, and they are weak in lobbying, although they are rarely organized into a voting bloc. In the case of politicians, a legal aid expenditure is not converted into immediate electoral advantages, as a loan waiver, free electricity, or even subsidies can. Legal aid is therefore still at the bottom of the priority list.

   
   
   
   

3. Systemic Invisibility

   
   

    Governments like schemes that yield visible or showcaseable results, such as schools, hospitals, highways, or direct benefit transfers, which can be branded and publicized. Legal AI, on the other hand delivers results that cannot be seen by the naked eye: an accused undertrial who is set free on bail, a destitute woman who is awarded maintenance, or a Dalit worker who gets compensation. These are deep celebrations of justice, but they do not have ribbon-cutting ceremonies or photographs that are accessible to the media. Consequently, legal assistance has hardly ever appeared as a political phrase or budget priority.

   
   

    Legal aid is, therefore, constantly left to take crumbs off the justice budget.

   
   
   
   

Reimagining Legal Aid: The Way Forward

Legal aid should be a right-based activity and not a discretionary welfare practice if India is to keep its constitutional pledge. Such a transformation is fundamental to guarantee proper access to justice by all citizens without reference to socio-economic status. Specific funding is one of the most important steps in this direction. The justice budget must be specifically allocated to legal aid as a certain percentage of the justice budget, so that there is a reliable allocation of funds to serve the needy.It is also important to professionalise the legal aid lawyers. This may be achieved through raising their salaries, establishing clear career opportunities, and performance evaluation and  Last but not least, there is the need to create community awareness. The legal system would provide an opportunity to make the legal system more accessible to everyone and empower people to actively seek help by investing in campaigns that will inform people about their legal rights and the services available.

Conclusion

Legal aid in India is a tale of two cities--a constitutional commitment of equality of justice with one hand and a grim tale of budgetary neglect with the other. With each year that legal aid remains underfunded, millions of people are denied their right to reasonable representation, and the disparity in access to justice between the rich and the poor continues to grow. In order to make justice a privilege of the rich, legal aid cannot be merely given symbolic approval, but it must be supported with substantial financial and institutional resources. High time we put the budget priorities into sync with constitutional values--so that justice in India may be administered in mystattles, not in crumbs.