UP Residents Get Legal Aid Most

New Delhi, Aug 24 (UNI) More than 2.4 million citizens benefited through legal aid during 2004-06, 1.4 million of them in Uttar Pradesh alone, Parliament was told today.

But in a written reply in the Lok Sabha, Law and Justice Minister Hans Raj Bhardwaj gave no details of the beneficiaries or the kinds of cases in which they were aided or the outcomes.

He was replying to questions raised by Rashtriya Janata Dal member from Jharkhand Dhirendra Agarwal and Bharatiya Janata Party member from Maharashtra Subhash Sureshchandra Deshmukh.

Bhardwaj said the aid users added up to 24,65,820, the largest number in Uttar Pradesh, 14,48,645, followed by Tamil Nadu, 4,31,512, Maharashtra, 1,88,175, and Madhya Pradesh, 1,09,018.

Assam had 75,565 recipients, Delhi, 39,187, Gujarat, 20,448, Bihar, 16,359, Punjab, 12,429, West Bengal, 11,612, Haryana, 7,729, Andhra Pradesh, 7,132, Orissa, 6,824, Karnataka, 5,294 and Jammu and Kashmir, 2,532.

Bhardwaj went on to list new categories of citizens who may be entitled to legal aid.

They include senior citizens, dependents or family members of Armed forces personnel and personnel of the para-military forces, who died in action, and victims of terrorists or extremist violence and riots.

There is a proposal for their inclusion in the context of the Legal Services Authorities Act 1987, Bhardwaj said.

The legal services facility is currently open to ''every person who has to file or defend a case'' if that person is: -- A member of Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe, -- A victim of trafficking in human beings or beggar as referred to in Article 23 of the Constitution, -- A women or a child, -- A mentally ill or otherwise disabled person, -- A victim of mass disaster, violence, flood, drought, earthquake, industrial disaster, -- An industrial workman, -- A person in custody, including custody in a protective home; or in a juvenile home; or in a psychiatric hospital or psychiatric nursing home.

The income limit set by the centre and most states is Rs 50,000 and is sought to be raised to that level in the remaining states as well.

UNI