Institute of Legal and Management Studies

Chief Justice of India BR Gavai on Saturday recalled his March visit to a relief camp in Churachandpur district of Manipur while delivering his address at the National Conference on “Strengthening Legal Aid and Delivery Mechanisms” organised by the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) at the Supreme Court.

Speaking about the visit, during which he along with other Supreme Court judges distributed relief material at camps in the violence-hit State, CJI Gavai said, “An elderly woman came forward and met me with folded hands and tears in her eyes and said, 'bane raho bhaiya'. To me that moment was a reminder that the true reward of legal service does not lie in statistics and annual reports but in the quiet gratitude and renewed faith of citizens who once felt invisible,” he said.

In March 2025, Justice Gavai, as then Executive Chairman of NALSA, had led a team of six Supreme Court judges to Manipur in March this year on the occasion of the Duodecennial Celebration of the High Court of Manipur. The visit aimed to strengthen legal and humanitarian support for communities affected by the ethnic violence that began in May 2023.

During that visit, the judges inaugurated Legal Services Camps and Medical Camps across all districts, and new Legal Aid Clinics in Imphal East, Imphal West and Ukhrul districts. They had also distributed relief materials to internally displaced persons (IDPs).

In his address on Saturday, CJI Gavai said the real measure of success of the legal aid movement was not in numbers but in the trust of the common person and their belief that someone was ready to stand by them.

“Justice is not a privilege of the few but a right of every citizen. Our role as judges, lawyers, and officers of the court is to ensure that the light of justice reaches even the last person standing at the margins of society,” he said.

Reflecting on Mahatma Gandhi's description of his moral compass, the CJI quoted, “When in doubt, we must recall the face of the poorest and the weakest person we have seen and ask ourselves if the state we contemplate will be of any use to them.”

Stressing on the shared duty of institutions, he said the Prime Minister's presence at the event represented “the shared responsibility of the executive, legislature, and judiciary for advancing the cause of legal aid and access to justice for all.”

CJI Gavai also acknowledged the role of para-legal volunteers and panel lawyers, calling them “the bridge between the institution and the individuals, between the promise of the Constitution and the reality of everyday life.”

He urged that legal aid must not be a reactive system but a “living movement” that anticipates social changes and new forms of exclusion. “The strength of our society lies in our ability to foresee where injustice may arise and to reach there before it does,” he said.

He concluded that the constitutional promise of justice – social, economic, and political – would be truly fulfilled only when every person, regardless of caste, gender, language, or circumstance, feels that the justice system belongs to them.