PRATAP CHANDRA KAKATI Vs. STATE OF ASSAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) "Nothing rankles more in the human heart than a brooding sense of injustice. Illness we can put up with, But injustice makes us want to pull things down. When only the rich can enjoy the law, as a doubtful luxury, and the Poor, who need it most, cannot have it because its expense puts it beyond their reach, the threat to the continued existence of a free democracy is not imaginary but very real, because democracy's very life depends upon making the machinery of justice so effective that every citizen shall believe in and benefit by its impartiality and fairness." The above observation of Brennan, J. has more application to this country because of deep poverty here. It was the realisation of great social injustice and that too in a forum of justice which must have led to the insertion of Article 39A by the Forty -Second Amendment Act, 1976, in our Constitution. "Equal Justice" had really been a part of our organic document from its very inception in Art.14 of the Constitution. It is however the liberal interpretation of Article 21 in Maneka Gandhi, AIR 1978 SC 597, which saw fresh thinking on the subject of legal aid by the highest court of the land. It was proclaimed in no uncertain terms by Bhagwati, J., in the landmark decision in Maneka Gandhi, AIR 1978 SC 597, that every procedure would not satisfy the call of Article 21. The same has to be "right and just and fair and not arbitrary, fanciful and oppressive" Hoskot, AIR 1978 SC 1548 : (1978 Cri LJ 1678), saw for the first time a clarion call in this regard, which was of course in the wake of Maneka Gandhi, Article 39A, which reads : -

(2.) HOSKOT , however contains a very bold pronouncement in this regard. It is held in no uncertain terms that providing of legal aid is a State's duty and not Government's charity. As to in which type of cases legal aid should be given, Krishna Iyer, J., observed as below (Para 24) :

(3.) THE country was to see bolder pronouncement from Bhagwati, J. In one of the Hussainara cases. AIR 1979 SC 1369 : (1979 Cri LJ 1045) (Para 6), the court observed that: