Jharkhand State Legal Services Authority Recruitment 2026: Vacancy, Eligibility & Selection Process

As far back as in the year 1944, in England, a Committee under the Chairmanship of Lord Rushcliffe was appointed to enquire what facilities at present exist in England and Wales for giving legal advice and assistance to poor persons and to make such recommendations as appeared to be desirable for the purpose of securing that poor persons need legal advice, may have such facilities at their disposal and for modifying and improving so far as seems expedient, the existing system whereby legal aid is available to persons in the conduct or litigation in which they are concerned whether in civil and criminal courts. The Committee submitted its recommendations in a report in 1945 which were accepted by the British Parliament, and the Legal Aid and Advice Act, 1949 came into existence.

In India, after submission of Rushcliffe Committee recommendation to the British parliament, suggestions were made by the Bombay Legal Aid Society in 1945 that a committee be set up in India to examine the question of legal aid to the poor. In 1949, under the Chairmanship of late Justice N.H.Bhagvati, then a judge of the Bombay high court," The committee on legal aid and legal advice in Bombay." was set up to consider the question of grant of legal aid to person of limited means or of backward classes in civil and criminal litigations. This committee made a detailed report in October, 1949 and suggested therein that legal aid was governmental responsibility. The same year, the government of west Bengal set up a Committee under the Chairmanship of Sir Arthur Trevol Harries, then the Chief Justice of Calcutta high court, to examine this question and the said committee strongly emphasized the need for rendering legal aid to the poor litigants.