Legal Aid Centre for Women

Legal Aid Centre for Women

The Legal Aid Centre for Women started in 1983 under the Chairmanship of Smt. V. Lakshmi Devi and founder Secretary Smt DSR Krishna under the guidance of Hon’ble former Sri. Justice A Gangadhara Rao and Sri. Justice BP Jeevan Reddy. Justice Gangadhar Rao felt that the Andhra Mahila Sabha complex would be incomplete without a Legal Aid Centre, particularly as its founder President Smt Durgabai Deshmukh was herself an Advocate and encouraged to constitute the Centre.

The Legal Aid Centre for Women works and facilitates legal literacy and awareness programs in the city, rural areas, and uses audio, visual material developed for the purpose, possibly with the help of village, mandal and district levels literacy organizations functioning under the National Literacy Mission.

The Activities Spread

In the last three decades the Centre besides counseling conducted many symposia, seminars, Legal Awareness camps and published legal literacy material to educate the public on different topics. The Centre prepared a poster on ‘Sexual harassment and guidelines by the Supreme Court of India. The Centre translated Legal bare Acts in English into Telugu and thus contributed to Legal literacy. The Legal Aid Centre published some of its success stories as booklets.

Major Supports

In March 1992, the Committee for Implementation of Legal Aid Schemes, Government of India made a grant to the Andhra Mahila Sabha Legal Aid Centre for organizing a seminar of Lady Advocates, Orientation of Para Professionals and a workshop for Development of Visual Materials for Legal Literacy among lay women. In appreciation of the work by the Legal Aid Centre, in 1995 again the same Committee gave a grant for conducting a seminar and an orientation program for paraprofessionals and Legal Literacy Camps utilizing visual materials developed earlier with the co-operation of experienced lady advocates and the Bench.

Late Smt.Devaki Devi, who was a former student of Madras Andhra Mahila Sabha School donated her retirement benefits to the Legal Aid Centre through her Will and her legal heir brother also donated his share of amount which he got from the Will to the Centre.

 Objectives

  1. To spread legal literacy among women

  2. To counsel women on matrimonial and property matters

  3. To refer to Legal Services Authority such cases that require financial assistance.

  4. To publish and distribute literature on legal matters.

  5. To organize seminars on various themes and send recommendations

  6. To network and assist other organizations with similar objective

Address

Durgabai Deshmukh Hospital & Research Centre, Durgabai Deshmukh Mahila Sabha (Andhra Mahila Sabha), O.U.Road, Vidyanagar, HYDERABAD-500 044.

Contact

040-27617801, 02, 03

Email

durgabaihospital@gmail.com

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