Pay Rs 100 a year and sleep over your worries about the cost of litigation on domestic violence, among others. This is the message the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) in association with Saath, a voluntary organisation, wants to convey through its ongoing campaign of registering members under its Legal Assurance Cover for Women.Launched on a pilot basis this June, as many as 300 women have procured assurance policies since then under this cover. Another 100 have registered themselves during a two-day awareness campaign in Vasna that ended on Tuesday. Chandrika Jhala, the programme coordinator from CSJ said: “We have successfully convinced women to get registered against a payment of Rs 120 and remain assured about the expense of getting justice from the court in cases of domestic violence or any other problem in the family.She said the response was good because the procedure at the Gujarat State Legal Aid Service Authority was found cumbersome, and women living in slums found it daunting to go to the GSLSA office in Shahibaug. A full-time lawyer has been hired to appear before the family court or a metropoliton court, as the case may be.”Of the 300 registrations in the past six months, cases have been filed in 22 instances and they are at various stages of litigation. Jhala said a couple of them have struck a compromise following successful conciliation efforts. Conciliation is in progress in another seven cases, she said. Lata Chetanbhai Ode and Kamlaben Sargara of Vasna Guptanagar had filed for maintenance under the Assurance Policy scheme and succeeded in striking a compromise in the family court. Cases of Asha Vaghela and Daksha Pandya are in progress in the family court while that of Ranjanben Khetaria is going on in the metropolitan court. Damini Patel of CSJ, who oversees the operations, is sure the scheme will not attract the attention of the insurance regulator, in its present form. Against a nominal fee, we undertake to do all the spending on behalf of the victims, no matter what the expenditure is, she said.
