Legal Aid Must Be Real, Not Symbolic: Supreme Court Formulates SOP To Curb Systemic Delays In Legal Aid Appeals & SLPs

The newly established SOP creates a structured, digitalised lifecycle for record handling, ensuring that administrative bottlenecks do not infringe upon the right to speedy justice. By integrating Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools and setting rigid timelines for all legal service authorities, the Court aims to foster a mission-mode environment for the transmission of judicial records. This systemic overhaul specifically addresses long-standing hurdles such as vernacular translation delays and communication gaps between jail authorities and legal aid committees.

Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Nongmeikapam Kotiswar Singh observed, “While implementation of the entire breadth of the SOP is left to the wisdom of the High Courts, we do hereby direct that the timelines mentioned under Heading 5 of the SOP shall be treated as binding. This is for the purposes of streamlining the filing of appeals in cases where the respective Legal Services Committees are required to take lead. This, it is our hope, will go a long way in addressing the structural gaps that had prompted this Court to take forward the present proceedings apart from dealing with the death reference from which they emanated”.

Advocate Vibha Datta Makhija appeared as amicus curiae, Advocate Aparna Bhat appeared for SCLSC, and Advocate Rashmi Nandakumar appeared for NALSA.

The proceedings originated from an appeal filed by Shankar Mahto, whose death sentence was confirmed by the Patna High Court in 2014. During the course of the hearing, the Court took note of the recurring issue of inordinate delays in matters where convicts were represented by the Supreme Court Legal Services Committee (SCLSC). This led the Court to initiate a broader inquiry into the structural causes of delays affecting the timely filing of petitions for legal aid beneficiaries.

In 2017, the Court appointed a senior counsel as amicus curiae to assist in formulating systemic solutions. Over subsequent years, the Court sought detailed suggestions from various High Courts, State Governments, and the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA).

In 2021, an expert committee was constituted, comprising officials from the Ministry of Home Affairs, the National Informatics Centre (NIC), and NALSA, to examine the digitization and electronic transmission of records. After extensive deliberations and a "Mission Mode" campaign in early 2025 to collect data on pending appeals, the Court reserved the matter to finalize the SOP.

Placing reliance on precedents like * Hussainara Khatoon v. State of Bihar (1980) 1 SCC 81 and Hayawadanrao Hoskot v. State of Maharashtra (1978) 3 SCC 544, the Bench observed that prisoners do not surrender their fundamental rights at the prison gate and have a right to effective counsel.

“Legal aid, simply put, refers to the provision of free or affordable legal services to individuals who lack the economic or social capacity to access justice through conventional means. It rests on the idea that equality before the law must be real and not symbolic. Legal aid helps ensure that rights are not confined to those who can afford legal representation, but are available to all, including the poor and marginalized”, the Bench noted.

“…In this sense, it plays a crucial role in making legal protections meaningful. In India, the concept of legal aid is closely tied to the vision expressed in the Preamble of the Constitution, which promises justice be it social, economic, and/or political, along with equality of status and opportunity, and affirms the secular character of the State…”, the Bench further noted.

The Court identified that delays were primarily caused by incomplete documentation, the difficulty of obtaining vernacular translations, and the failure of jail authorities to provide custody certificates and vakalatnamas in a timely manner. It concluded that a digital ecosystem with clear accountability was necessary to ensure that economic or social disadvantages do not prevent any citizen from accessing justice.

The Court directed the immediate implementation of the "Standard Operating Procedure for Translation and Transmission of Records, 2025", which is now mandatory for all legal service authorities and jail officials. Under the SOP, High Court Legal Services Committees (HCLSC) must transmit complete paperbooks to the SCLSC within seven days of a requisition. Jail Superintendents are required to send attested vakalatnamas and custody certificates within three days of a request. Furthermore, the Court introduced a categorization of cases, designating death penalty and life imprisonment matters as "Category A1: High-Priority", which requires mandatory daily status updates during the initial filing phase.

Cause Title: Shankar Mahto v. State of Bihar (Neutral Citation: 2026 INSC 369)

Appearances:

Appellant: Vibha Dutta Makhija, Sr. Adv. (A.C.), Aftab Ali Khan, AOR, Parveen Gaur, Mansur Ali Khan, \ Sheetal Rawat, Mohd. Faisal Khan, Advocates.

Respondent: Mahipal Singh, Swati Vishan, Akhileshwar Jha, Asmita Mishra, Devendra Kumar Mishra, Priyanka, Mukul Kumar, AOR, Narendra Kumar, AOR, Guntur Pramod Kumar, AOR, Prerna Singh, Dhruv Yadav, Keshav Singh, Nishe Rajen Shonker, AOR, Anu K Joy, Alim Anvar, Santhosh K, Devika A.L., Himanshu Shekhar, AOR, Vishakha, AOR, Pukhrambam Ramesh Kumar, AOR, Karun Shamra, Anupama Ngangom, Rajkumari Divyasana, Preetika Dwivedi, AOR, Abhisek Mohanty, Ansh Rajauria, Ankolekar Gurudatta, AOR, Ashok Mathur, AOR, Shardha Zutshi, Ahanthem Henry, Ahanthem Rohen Singh, Mohan Singh, Aniket Rajput, Khoisnam Nirmala Devi, Yeshu Mehta, Tanay Hegde, Kumar Mihir, AOR, Pradeep Misra, AOR, K. Enatoli Sema, AOR, Amit Kumar Singh, Chubalemla Chang, Prang Newmai, Yanmi Phazang, Somanadri Goud Katam, AOR, Sirajuddin, Amit Anand Tiwari, Sabarish Subramanian, AOR, KSN & Co., AOR, V Balachandran, Siddharth Naidu, Saurabh Bharadwaj, Rashmi Nandakumar, AOR, Yashmita Pandey, Nikhil Majithia, AOR, Sanchit Garga, AOR, Mithu Jain, Kunal Rana, Shashwat Jaiswal, Diksha Arora, Bhanu Singh, Astha Sharma, AOR, Ramesh Babu M. R., AOR, Vijay Kumar, Shuvodeep Roy, AOR, Deepayan Dutta, Saurabh Tripathi, Lokesh Sinhal, Samar Vijay Singh, AOR, Sabarni Som, Aman Dev Sharma, Nikunj Gupta, Keshav Mittal, Gaj Singh, Surjendu Sankar Das, AOR, Anando Mukherjee, AOR, Shwetank Singh, Riya Dhingra, Utkarsh Anand, Ravi Raghunath, AOR, Avijit Mani Tripathi, AOR, T.K. Nayak, Sahil Tagotra, AOR, Shreya Kasera, Mukesh K. Giri, AOR, Mandaar Mukesh Giri, Pranjal Kumar, Kunal Chaudhary, Enakshi Mukhopadhyay Siddhanta, AOR, Vaibhav Srivastava, Sugandha Anand, AOR, V. N. Raghupathy, AOR, Prashant Shrikant Kenjale, AOR, Anwesh Madhukar, Archit Upadhayay, AOR, Harsh Prabhakar, Abhas Mishra, Jaspreet Gogia, AOR, G. Prakash, AOR, Mukti Chaudhry, AOR, Disha Singh, AOR, G. Indira, AOR, Kunal Chatterji, AOR, Maitrayee Banerjee, Rohit Bansal, Varij Nayan Mishra, Atul Jha, Sandeep Kumar Jha, AOR, Aparna Bhatt, Charu Ambwani, AOR, Karishma Maria, Mahfooz Ahsan Nazki, AOR, Arjun Garg, AOR, Amruta Arjun Garg, Arushi Kulshrestha, Saaransh Shukla, Muskan Bensla, Mrinmoyee Das, T. G. Narayanan Nair, AOR, Samyuktha H Nair, Deepanwita Priyanka, AOR, Satyalipsu Ray, Priyal Sheth, Sneha Kalita, AOR, P. I. Jose, AOR, Nirnimesh Dube, AOR, K.M. Nataraj, Indira Bhakar, Tadimalla Bhaskar Gowtham, Vinayak Sharma, Santosh Ramdurg, Yogesh Vats, Shreekant Neelappa Terdal, AOR, Parekh & Co., AOR, T.S. Kargawkar, Hitesh Kumar Sharma, Amit Kumar Chawla, Anupam Kumar, Raghavendra Pratap Singh, Shreya Jha, M. Yogesh Kanna, AOR, Sanjai Kumar Pathak, AOR, Shashi Pathak, Arvind Kumar Tripathi, Robin Kumar, Shweta Jayshankar Dwivedi, Ashish Kumar Sinha, Binita Jaiswal, Karan Sharma, AOR, Mohit Siwach, K. V. Bharathi Upadhyaya, AOR, Mahesh Thakur, AOR, Narveer Yadav, Siddhartha Sati, Anil Nag, AOR, Asmita Singh, AOR, Ankita Makan, Karthik S.D., AOR, Kunal Mimani, Prashant Alai, Abhinav Rana

Click here to read/download the Order