UPSC 2023 GS-II · 10 marks · 150 words
Who are entitled to receive free legal aid? Assess the role of National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) in rendering free legal aid in India.
What “Assess” demands
weigh the significance or extent of something and state how much it matters, with justification.
The characteristic failure: asserting importance without establishing degree.
What a top answer must contain
These are the checkable specifics from the marking standard for this question — the actual case, committee, datum or thinker, not an instruction to “give examples”.
- Art 39A (42nd Amendment); LSA Act 1987 s.12 entitlement list: women, children, SC/ST, industrial workmen, disabled, trafficking victims, custody, income-ceiling persons
- NALSA machinery: national → state → district → taluk; Lok Adalats, legal-aid clinics, para-legal volunteers
- Assessment positives: crores of beneficiaries, Lok Adalat settlements decongesting courts, NALSA v. UoI (2014) transgender rights as institutional voice
- Deficits: per-capita spend among world's lowest, aid-lawyer quality, awareness gap — Justice reports data; suggest empanelment reform + paralegal depth
The band thresholds and the pre-scored sample answers behind this standard stay private — they are the calibration your copy is placed against.
Now write it, and find out what you actually scored
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