HAYULIANG, 4 Mar: The Arunachal Pradesh State Legal Services Authority (APSLSA), in collaboration with the union department of justice (DoJ), organised a legal literacy programme (LLP) for the gaon buras and gaon buris of Anjaw district at the community hall here on Saturday.
The programme, organised as part of the project titled ‘Synergy between
customary practices of the traditional village council system & formal laws of India’, was attended by 51 GBs and HGBs from 50 different villages of the district.
The participants were apprised of topics relevant to their roles as heads of the traditional village councils, such as the Assam Frontier Regulation of 1945 (from which the GBs derive their powers); the Arunachal Pradesh Civil Courts Act of 2021 (which now officially recognises the traditional courts as formal civil courts); the fundamentals of court proceedings, etc, by subject experts Yomge Ado and Utumso Boo.
Several NALSA-approved schemes and Acts, such as free legal aid, protection of women from domestic violence, victim compensation scheme, etc, were covered by advocates Bajangso Kri and Khopey Thaley of the Anjaw DLSA.
“The initial target under the project was to train 500 GBs from 13 districts. We were able to deliver beyond this mandate by providing legal literacy and capacity building training to 554 GBs in total. Additionally, through our trained GBs, under the ‘each one teach one’ initiative, we have also been able to provide basic legal awareness to around 3,000 rural residents in 200 villages so far, and we are hoping that those figures will rise to at least 5,000 rural residents in the next few weeks as more and more GBs begin to contribute towards the initiative,” APSLSA-DoJ project coordinator Gonum Pul said.
High-ranking officers from the judiciary, the administration, and the police department, besides APSLSA Member Secretary Yomge Ado, Anjaw JMFC Utumso Boo, SP Rike amsi, ADC Sotaillum Bellai, and CO Nyalem Hakom also attended the programme.
