Legal Aid to the Accused - Not a Mere Formality

  • Unique Paper ID: 180024
  • PageNo: 9-13
  • Abstract:
  • The Supreme Court has recently passed twelve guidelines for legal aid to accused who stand trial for major crimes. This ruling in Ashok v. State of UP is a trend setter and goes to show how seriously the Court, especially the Apex Court looks at legal aid for the accused. It is no longer a procedural formality but is a right that forms part of Article 21 of the Constitution of India. Focus is now on good quality of legal aid and not as a mere technicality. This development augurs well for Indian criminal jurisprudence which is founded, like other civilised systems, on the adage that every accused is presumed innocent till he is tried and found guilty by a competent court. Legal aid plays a major role here and helps the innocent while simultaneously building faith in the justice and criminal law systems of the country.

Copyright & License

Copyright © 2026 Authors retain the copyright of this article. This article is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

BibTeX

@article{180024,
        author = {Deshmukh Parimal Tushar and Dr. UJWALA BENDALE},
        title = {Legal Aid to the Accused - Not a Mere Formality},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2025},
        volume = {12},
        number = {1},
        pages = {9-13},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=180024},
        abstract = {The Supreme Court has recently passed twelve guidelines for legal aid to accused who stand trial for major crimes. This ruling in Ashok v. State of UP is a trend setter and goes to show how seriously the Court, especially the Apex Court looks at legal aid for the accused. It is no longer a procedural formality but is a right that forms part of Article 21 of the Constitution of India.  Focus is now on good quality of legal aid and not as a mere technicality. This development augurs well for Indian criminal jurisprudence which is founded, like other civilised systems, on the adage that every accused is presumed innocent till he is tried and found guilty by a competent court. Legal aid plays a major role here and helps the innocent while simultaneously building faith in the justice and criminal law systems of the country.},
        keywords = {Legal aid, accused, representation, amicus curae, prosecution, advocates},
        month = {May},
        }

Cite This Article

Tushar, D. P., & BENDALE, D. U. (2025). Legal Aid to the Accused - Not a Mere Formality. International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology (IJIRT), 12(1), 9–13.

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