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ment the Bhagwati and Harries reports. The 14th Law Commission Report stated the fact that 'if laws do not provide for an equality of opportunity to seek justice to all segments of society, then they have no protective value and unless some arrangement is made for providing a poor man the means to pay Court fee's, advocates fees and other incidental costs of litigation, he is denied an opportunity to seek justice.'Â [7]

In 1960, the union government prepared an outline for legal aid scheme and forwarded it to various legal aid organisations and States for their comments. The state government in a conference of the State Law Ministers expressed their inability to allocate funds for the purpose of the legal aid schemes. The Third All India Lawyers conference in 1962, further considered the question of legal aid. It was suggested that legal aid was an obligation of both State and Central Government and for this purpose they should provide funds.

In 1970, the National Conference was convened in New Delhhi on 'Legal Aid and Legal Advice'. This conference emphasised that it was constitutional obligation of the state to make provision for Legal Aid to the weaker sections having no means. Justice P.N Bhagwati [8] was the chairman of the Legal Aid Committee which was appointed by the Government of Gujarat for the first time for suggesting ways and means of providing free legal aid and advice to the poor and weaker section of the community. The aim of the committee was to make recommendations so as to render legal advice more easily available and to make justice more easily accessible to such persons, including recommendations on the question of encouragements and financial assistance to institutions engaged in the work of such legal aid [9] . P.N Bhagwati observed ' even while retaining the adversary system, some changes may be effected whereby the judge is given a greater participatory role in the trail so as to place poor, as far as possible, on a footing of equality with the rich in the administration of justice.' [10]

The focus of the committee was the indigent person seeking to access justice. The report stated that there can be no rule of law unless the common man irrespective of the fact whether he is rich or poor is able to claim and justify to the rights given to him by the law. The machinery of law should be readily accessible to all. The poor must be placed in the same position as the rich by means of adequate legal service programme. It stated that the inequality between the rich and the poor in administration of the justice can be removed by establishing and developing effective system of the legal aid programme. Legal aid and advice should be regarded not as a matter of charity or bounty but as a matter of right. [11]

The judicial attitude towards legal aid was not very progressive. In Janardhan Reddy v. State of Hyderabad [12] and Tara Singh v. State of Punjab [13] , the court, while taking a very restrictive interpretation of statutory provisions giving a person the right to lawyer, opined that this was, 'a privilege given to accused and it is his duty to ask for a lawyer if he wants to engage one or get his relations to engage one for him. The only duty cast on the Magistrate is to afford him the necessary opportunity (to do so). 'Even in capital punishment cases the early Supreme Court seemed relentless when it declared that 'it cannot be laid do