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TMI Blog1986 (3) TMI 347X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... imperiling his personal liberty, is entitled to free legal aid at State cost and whether it is obligatory on him to make an application for free legal assistance or the Magistrate or the Sessions Judge trying him is bound to inform him that he is entitled to free legal aid and inquire from him whether he wishes to have a lawyer provided to him at State cost: if he is not so informed and in consequence he does not apply for free legal assistance and as a result he is not represented by any lawyer in the trial and is convicted, is the conviction vitiated and liable to be set aside? This question is extremely important because we have almost 50% population which is living below the poverty line and around 70% is illiterate and large sections o ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... es were examined by the appellants without any legal assistance. The result was that at the end of the trial four of the other accused were acquitted but the appellant and another accused were convicted of the offence under Section 506 of the Indian Penal Code and they were sentenced to undergo simple imprisonment for a period of two years. 4. The appellant thereupon preferred an appeal before the Gauhati High Court. There were several contentions urged in support of the appeal but it is not necessary to refer to them, since there is one contention which in our opinion goes to the root of the matter and has invalidating effect on the conviction and sentence recorded against the appellant. That contention is that the appellant were not provi ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... 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 and the State is under a mandate to provide a lawyer to an accused person if the circumstances of the case and the needs of justice so require, provided of course the accused person does not object to the provision of such lawyer . This Court pointed out that it is an essential ingredient of reasonable, fair and just procedure to prisoner who is to seek his liberation through the court's process that he should have legal service available to him. The same view was taken by a Bench of this Court earlier in M.H. Hoskot v. State of Maharashtra 1978CriLJ1678 . It may therefore now be tak ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... e their rights and entitlements under the law. It is this absence of legal awareness which is responsible for the deception, exploitation and deprivation of rights and benefits from which the poor suffer in this land. Their legal needs always stand to become crisis oriented because their ignorance prevents them from anticipating legal troubles and approaching a lawyer for consultation and advise in time and their poverty magnifies the impact of the legal troubles and difficulties when they come. Moreover, because of their ignorance and illiteracy, they cannot become self-reliant: they cannot even help themselves. The law ceases to be their protector because they do not know that they are entitled to the protection of the law and they can av ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... and who is not represented by a lawyer on account of his poverty or indigence that he is entitled to free legal services at the cost of the State unless he is not willing to take advantage of the free legal services provided by the State. We also gave a general direction to every State in the country ...to make provision for grant of free legal service to an accused who is unable to engage a lawyer on account of reasons such as poverty, indigence or incommunicado situations, the only qualification being that the offence charged against an accused is such that, on conviction, it would result in a sentence of imprisonment and is of such a nature that the circumstances of the case and that the needs of social justice require that he should be ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... n and sentence recorded against the appellant must be set aside. 7. The appellant contended that if the conviction and sentence recorded against him is set aside, the order dismissing the appellant from service passed on the basis of his conviction by the learned Additional Deputy Commissioner must also be quashed and he must be reinstated in service with back wages. Now it is true that the appellant was dismissed from service without holding an inquiry on account of his being convicted for a criminal offence and since the conviction of the appellant is being set aside by us, the order of dismissal must also fall and the appellant must be reinstated in service with back wages. But the result of our quashing the conviction of the appellants ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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