NALSA's Network Gave Free Legal Services to 20.08 Lakh People in 2025-26, and Its Four National Lok Adalats of 2025 Disposed of 14.84 Crore Cases

The National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) counted 20,07,776 people, about 20 lakh, as beneficiaries of free legal services between April 2025 and March 2026, up from 16,57,527 in 2024-25. NALSA’s statement for the year puts the largest groups at 5,57,772 people in custody and 4,14,795 women, with 1,47,320 members of Scheduled Castes and 1,47,932 of Scheduled Tribes.

Lok Adalats, the settlement forums NALSA also runs, work at a different scale. NALSA’s reports for the four National Lok Adalats of 2025 (8 March, 10 May, 13 September and 13 December) record 14,84,25,050 cases disposed of, which is 14.84 crore, with settlements valued at Rs 72,133 crore. Those two totals are tuput’s addition of the four reports. The latest sitting NALSA had posted by 15 October 2026, held on 9 May 2026, disposed of 3,91,30,051 of the 4,90,33,256 cases taken up. Its report notes that nine states and union territories held theirs on later dates, from 13 June to 11 July 2026.

How a directive principle became a legal right

Article 39A tells the State to “secure that the operation of the legal system promotes justice, on a basis of equal opportunity” and to provide free legal aid so that opportunities for securing justice are not denied “to any citizen by reason of economic or other disabilities.” Parliament added it through the 42nd Amendment of 1976, into the directive principles of Part IV, which courts cannot enforce directly. The directive principles article on this site covers that Part. Article 22(1) separately says an arrested person cannot be denied the right “to consult, and to be defended by, a legal practitioner of his choice.”

The Supreme Court turned the directive into an enforceable duty through Article 21, the right to life and personal liberty (see the fundamental rights explainer). In Hussainara Khatoon v. Home Secretary, State of Bihar, an order of 19 April 1979, a bench led by Justice P. N. Bhagwati recorded that Bihar had released 70 undertrial prisoners, people jailed while awaiting trial, who had stayed in prison longer than the maximum sentence they could have received if convicted. The order’s headnote records the Court’s holding that every state government must provide free legal services to an accused person who risks losing liberty and cannot afford a lawyer, where the needs of justice require it, and that a trial without them may be vitiated under Article 21. The Court also directed magistrates to tell an undertrial held for 90 or 60 days, as the case may be, that he can seek bail, and to see that a lawyer at state cost is available to help him apply.

On 19 December 1980 the Court returned to the subject in Khatri v. State of Bihar. ESCR-Net’s summary of that judgment records the Court calling legal services “an essential ingredient of reasonable, fair and just procedure for a person accused of an offence,” and holding that a state cannot excuse itself by pleading lack of funds.

Delivery came next. In 1980 a national committee under Justice Bhagwati, the Committee for Implementing Legal Aid Schemes (CILAS), began to oversee state schemes. Parliament passed the Legal Services Authorities Act in 1987 to give them a uniform statutory base. It was amended in 1994 and the Central Government notified it into force on 9 November 1995, the date NALSA now observes as Legal Services Day.

A chain of authorities from the Supreme Court to the taluk

Section 3 of the Act makes the Chief Justice of India the Patron-in-Chief of NALSA, with a serving or retired Supreme Court judge as Executive Chairman. Each state has a State Legal Services Authority headed by the Chief Justice of its High Court. Section 9 puts a District Legal Services Authority in every district under the District Judge, and a taluk committee sits below it, chaired by a senior judge.

NALSA’s own film, shown at its November 2025 conference, counted 37 state authorities, 707 district authorities, 2,440 taluk committees and over 12,000 legal services clinics. It also counted 48,499 panel lawyers, advocates enrolled to take assigned cases, and 48,380 para-legal volunteers, local people such as retired teachers and anganwadi workers whom state authorities train to help neighbours find the right office.

Parliament pays for this under Section 14 of the Act. For 2024-25 NALSA’s accounts record a grant of Rs 200 crore from the Ministry of Law and Justice for the National Legal Aid Fund, and Rs 147.93 crore more for the Legal Aid Defence Counsel scheme described below.

Who qualifies and how to apply

Section 12 lists the entitled groups: members of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, victims of trafficking or begar (forced unpaid labour, barred by Article 23), women, children, persons with disabilities, victims of a mass disaster, ethnic violence, caste atrocity or industrial disaster, industrial workmen, and anyone in custody, including in a juvenile home or psychiatric hospital. Women qualify regardless of income, NALSA says. Everyone else qualifies below an income ceiling set by the state: Rs 3 lakh a year in 24 of the 37 states and union territories in NALSA’s table, down to Rs 25,000 in Mizoram and Rs 15,000 in Dadra and Nagar Haveli. For a case in the Supreme Court the ceiling is Rs 5 lakh.

Section 13 adds one test, that the authority is satisfied the applicant has a prima facie case, meaning a case that looks arguable on its face, to bring or defend. It also says an affidavit about income can be enough unless the authority has reason to disbelieve it.

An application can be made on plain paper, on a form, online at nalsa.gov.in, or orally to a para-legal volunteer. Under the NALSA regulations of 2010, the decision is due immediately and no later than 7 days after receipt, and a refusal can be appealed to the Executive Chairman of the authority. NALSA says aid runs from the first court to the Supreme Court and covers a lawyer, court fees, witness expenses, drafting, translation and certified copies, at any stage of a case. Drafting includes a special leave petition, the Supreme Court route explained in how a case reaches the Supreme Court.

Lok Adalats: a settlement with the force of a decree

A Lok Adalat, literally a people’s court, is a bench that helps both sides reach a compromise. Under Section 19 it can take any case pending in a court and any dispute not yet filed, except an offence the law does not allow to be compounded, that is, settled by the parties. Its members act only as conciliators. A bench has a sitting or retired judge or judicial officer, joined by a lawyer, a social worker or both. The first Lok Adalat in India was held at Una, Junagadh district, Gujarat, on 14 March 1982, according to the Executive Chairperson of the Gujarat State Legal Services Authority, speaking at the 2025 conference.

Two features give the forum its weight. Section 21 deems every award a decree of a civil court, final and binding on all parties, with no appeal. A party who disagrees with the compromise can instead start a case in the ordinary court. And no court fee is payable in a Lok Adalat, while a fee already paid in a referred case is refunded when it settles.

A National Lok Adalat sits on one day in every court from the Supreme Court to the taluk, and NALSA’s annual report says four are held each year. The report for 2024-25 says the four of 2024 disposed of over 10.45 crore cases, 8.7 crore of them pre-litigation, meaning disputes that had not yet reached a court. In 2025 about 85 per cent of the disposals at the four sittings were pre-litigation matters, 12,65,89,535 of 14,84,25,050 on tuput’s addition of NALSA’s reports. The annual report lists the matters taken up: compoundable criminal cases, bank recovery, motor accident claims, cheque dishonour, labour disputes, revenue cases, matrimonial disputes and others.

The split affects any comparison with the courts. The National Judicial Data Grid showed 5,15,26,829 cases pending in district and taluka courts on 14 October 2026. Most of what a National Lok Adalat disposes of was never in that queue, so the two numbers are not a before and after. The guide to how Indian courts are organised sets out the full pendency figures.

Permanent Lok Adalats, Tele-Law and full-time defence lawyers

Section 22B lets a state authority set up a Permanent Lok Adalat for public utility services: transport, post and telephone, power and water supply, sanitation, hospitals and insurance. A district judge or a judge of higher rank chairs it, with two members experienced in utility services. Disputes up to Rs 10 lakh qualify, and a party must apply before going to court. It first conciliates, and if the parties cannot agree it can decide the dispute itself, which an ordinary Lok Adalat cannot. At NALSA’s 2025 conference a speaker in the Permanent Lok Adalat session reported about 13,11,345 settlements out of 14,25,119 cases received over ten years.

Tele-Law starts from a phone or a screen. The Department of Justice launched it on 20 April 2017 in 1,800 Common Service Centres in 170 districts of 11 states, connecting a caller by video or phone to a panel lawyer for advice before any case is filed. By 30 August 2023 it ran from 2,50,000 centres with 50.33 lakh beneficiaries and a stated target of 1 crore by 2026. A mobile app followed on 13 November 2021 and works in English and all 22 scheduled languages. The Tele-Law portal showed 1,14,30,748 pieces of advice enabled as of 30 September 2026, so the 1 crore target was passed.

For criminal cases NALSA started the Legal Aid Defence Counsel System in 2019 as a pilot in 17 districts. It became a Central Sector Scheme in March 2023. Each district office has full-time defence lawyers who handle remand, bail, trial and appeal for eligible accused. NALSA’s annual report lists 586 chief, 1,047 deputy chief and 1,952 assistant defence counsel as of March 2025, and 72,437 prison visits during 2024-25. Between January and August 2025 NALSA gave legal aid to over 1.57 lakh prisoners, its conference film said.

Gaps the system’s own conference named

The November 2025 conference was frank about shortfalls. A Supreme Court judge who chaired the session on panel lawyers, and who was herself a panel lawyer from 1998 to 2008, said, in the conference report’s summary, that quality legal aid remains a distant dream despite offices at every level, and named uneven empanelment, thin training and discouraging honorarium structures as causes. She added that “legal aid to the poor does not mean poor legal aid.” Another speaker, a Chief Justice of a High Court, cited Punjab and Haryana, where panel lawyers receive Rs 20,000 for a contested High Court case and Rs 10,000 for an uncontested one, and the session chair welcomed those higher fees.

Permanent Lok Adalats show the same unevenness. The moderator of the Permanent Lok Adalat session, an officer at NALSA, recorded them in 22 states and union territories, with 15 yet to set them up. She reported 98 chairman posts and 181 member posts vacant in 16 of them, and settlement rates ranging from 83 per cent in some places to below 10 per cent in others. The Executive Chairperson of one state authority put the coverage at 382 of India’s 780 districts, with each Permanent Lok Adalat serving an average of 3.7 million people.

NALSA’s accounts for 2024-25 show that Rs 33.26 crore of the Rs 147.93 crore defence-counsel grant released to state authorities lapsed to the Government of India.