Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud Tuesday said top judges of several countries agree that the right to legal aid has to begin “at the earliest,” even before arrest of an accused. He said judges need to educate not just students but the masses also about it.

The CJI was speaking at the valedictory session of the two-day ‘Regional Conference on Access to Legal Aid: Strengthening Access to Justice in the Global South’ organised by the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) here.

The conference was attended by President Droupadi Murmu, Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, and Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal. Besides them, more than 200 delegates including Chief Justices of Bangladesh, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini, the Maldives, Mauritius, Mongolia, Nepal, Zimbabwe and the ministers of justice from Kazakhstan, Nepal, Palau, Seychelles, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, and Zambia took part in the meeting.