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s identified sources such as court fees collected from the litigants, legal aid steps, levy of special cess, donations and many more for the purpose of funding the legal aid programme and so on.

Though the ideas as laid down by the Report was revolutionary but not much that was mentioned in the report was implemented as the government that had appointed the Juridicare committee was not in power when the 1977 report was submitted. The 1977 report remained on the shelf along with it the National legal Services Bill. Though the congress was voted back to power in 1980 but it was too enthusiastic about the 1977 Report. A committee at the national level was constituted to oversee and supervise legal aid programmes throughout the country under the Chairmanship of Justice Bhagwati [23] . This committee came to be known as CILAS [24] and started monitoring legal aid activities throughout the country. The introduction of Lok Adalats added a new chapter to the justice dispensation system of this country and succeeded in providing a supplementary forum to the litigants for conciliatory settlement of their disputes. In 1987, the Legal Services Authorities Act was enacted, thus crystallising a uniform statutory base for the concept of legal aid throughout the country.

宪法和法律规定的法律援助-Constitutional and Statutory Provisions on Legal Aid

最高法院的法律援助-Supreme Court on Legal Aid

The linkage between Article 21 and the right to free legal aid was forged in the decision in Hussainara Khatoon v. State of Bihar [25] where the court was appalled at the plight of thousands of undertrials languishing in the jails in Bihar for years on end without ever being represented by a lawyer. The court declared that 'there can be no doubt that speedy trial, and by speedy trial, we mean reasonably expeditious trial, is an integral and essential part of the fundamental right to life and liberty enshrined in Article 21.' The court pointed out that Article 39-A emphasised that free legal service was an inalienable element of 'reasonable, fair and just' procedure and that the right to free legal services was implicit in the guarantee of Article 21. In his inimitable style Justice Bhagwati declared:

'Legal aid is really nothing else but equal justice in action. Legal aid is in fact the delivery system of social justice. If free legal services are not provided to such an accused, the trial itself may run the risk of being vitiated as contravening Article 21 and we have no doubt that every State Government would try to avoid such a possible eventuality'.

Further in the case of Hussainara Khatoon & Ors. (V) v. Home Secretary, State of Bihar [26] , Patna Justice Bhagwati held that:Â 'it's the constitutional right of every accused person who is unable to engage a lawyer and secure legal services on account of reasons such as poverty, indigence or incommunicado situation, to have free legal services provided to him by the State and the State is under a constitutional mandate to provide a free lawyer to such accused person if the needs of justice so require. If free legal services are not provided to such an accused, the trial itself may run the risk of being vitiated as contravening Article 21 and it is hoped that every State Government would try to avoid such a possible eventuality.'

In the case ofÂ Khatri & Ors. (II) v. State of Biha