Legal Aid

"Legal Aid: Ensuring Equality for All Through Access to Justice"

Poor prisoners' families can receive legal counsel on bail, emergency leave, jail transfers, victim compensation funds, wrongful imprisonment, torture in custody, and other issues through GNEquality-India. We offer competent advocacy to protect the legal rights of the children of prisoners who live with a single parent because it commonly happens that the child is uninformed of the specific rights pertinent to the issues. We have presented the High Court with a variety of public interest litigation cases, including the execution of prison reforms, the defence of inmates' rights, and the rights of unintentional victims. We have set up a legal helpline number to address this specific need.

Perception: Operating an advisory cell with legal components of empowering child rights.

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Public Interest Litigations on the subject of prison reforms such as:

1. To provide proper mental health care and services for prisoners with psychiatric illnesses, The Hon’ble Madurai Bench of Madras High Court directed the government to provide effective mental health care to prison inmates in W.P. (MD) No. 16484 of 2020, dated 19.08.2021.

2. To stop the excessive deduction from the prisoners' wage by proving it as unconstitutional. The Hon’ble Madurai Bench of Madras High Court in W.P (MD) No.14653 of 2017 dated 01.02.2019 observed that the deduction of 70% of wages of the Prisoners is unconstitutional and advised the government to deduct only reasonable wage as the rule laid down by the Hon’ble by the Supreme Court.

3. To eliminate the discriminative rules on women prisoners as they were not eligible for admission in the open-air prisons. The Hon’ble Madurai Bench of Madras High Court in W.P (MD) No.17946 of 2018 dated 10.09.2018 came down heavily on the discriminatory prison rule and directed to revisit the rules Nos.796 and 797 of the Tamilnadu Prison Rules, 1983 discriminating men, women and third gender prisoners in terms of eligibility towards Open Air Prison. The Hon’ble Court had also held that the rules are against Articles 14, 16 and 21 of the Constitution of India as it is gender discrimination.  

4. To establish child-friendly interview halls in prisons. This matter is pending before the Hon’ble Madurai Bench of Madras High Court—W.P (MD) No. 12587 of 2016.

5. To reopen the aftercare home for the welfare of the abandoned prisoners which was closed arbitrarily by the Government in 18.10.2001 with a resolution stating the absence of any such neglected prisoners and thrown the lives of those reformed prisoners at risk of recidivism. In W.P.(MD) No. 15341 of 2017 dated 18.12.2019, to revamp the Tamilnadu Discharged Prisoners Aid Society to uphold its objectives by implementing its welfare schemes for the discharged prisoners and also reopen After Care Home.

6. To release decrepit/aged prisoners under the premature release programs and by constituting Advisory Board to place the cases of aged and sick prisoners who are incapable of doing any real work and would appear to be unable to commit or organise crime if sent on parole shall also be placed before the Advisory Board for considering their case for premature release. The Hon’ble Court issued direction to frame appropriate guidelines, in the light of the directions issued by the Hon’ble Supreme Court dated 08.09.2016 in Crl.A.No.865 of 2016 within a period of four months. 

7. To enable effective implementation of the Probation of Offenders Act, we had challenged the surrender of 32 Probation Officers by a Government order which will be an impediment on monitoring the first-time offenders and their probation, rehabilitation, providing assistance to the crime victims, verifying the cases of emergency and ordinary leave for the convict prisoners. The Writ Petition in WP (MD) No.19745 of 2018 is pending before the Hon’ble Court.

8. To enhance the quantum of victim compensation fund as equivalent increase of prisoners' wages and fix the time line for each steps on processing the fund to all those deserving victims, we filed W.P. (MD) No.14224 of 2019 dated 25.06.2019 wherein the Hon’ble Court observed that there is a corresponding increase in wages payable to the prisoners in 2011 and 2017, there is no corresponding increase to the funds made available to the Victim Compensation Scheme and that apart, wide publicity has not been made. As a result, the victims of the crimes cannot avail themselves of such benevolence.

9. To distribute Victim Compensation to 49 deserving Crime Victims belongs to 21 families who lost their loved ones by domestic dispute related crime. The Hon’ble Court had directed the government to take necessary steps for speedy disbursement in W.P.(MD) No.2801 of 2021 dated 15.02.2021.

10. To fill the existing vacancies of 24 Addl. Superintendent of Prison and Social Workers in all the Central Prisons, Special Prisons for Women, and Pudukottai Borstal School of Tamilnadu, he filed W.P. (MD) No.6852 of 2021 dated 20.07.2021, in which the Hon’ble High Court directed the government to take a pragmatic decision as soon as possible to fill all the vacant posts by highlighting the duties and responsibilities of all such officials in the correctional services.

11. PIL on PARAVAI and PATTAM projects to be implemented in all the Central Prisons of Tamilnadu - W.P.(MD) No.18550 of 2023 to reform young first-time offenders. By which we can reduce the recidivism rate and rehabilitate those young offenders with guidance to set their life in rightful paths.

12. As part of our Legal Aid Services, we filed a writ petition in W.P.(MD) No.10418 of 2020 with the prayer to sanction compensation of Rs.10 Lakhs under The Tamil Nadu Victim Compensation Scheme for Women Victims/Survivors of Sexual Assault/Other Crimes in 2018 for two minor children whose mother was allegedly killed by their father for domestic dispute and the accused father died by suicide in the prison.

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Besides that, to ensure equality for people with disability, PIL on accessible tourism in W.P.(MD) No.16484 of 2020, enabling temple visits, appointing special teachers in Govt Special Schools for visually impaired.