Delhi HC Directs DSLSA to Complete Para-Legal Volunteer Selection Within One Month for University of Delhi Law Students
Delhi High Court asks the DSLSA selection committee to conclude the PLV selection process within one month, with an expectation that final-year students receive preference.
Justice Jasmeet Singh, sitting singly at the High Court of Delhi, disposed of a writ petition filed by two University of Delhi law students who had sought recruitment as Para-Legal Volunteers with the Delhi State Legal Services Authority (DSLSA). The court declined to issue the sweeping directions the petitioners sought, but directed the DSLSA’s District-level selection committee to complete the PLV selection process in accordance with existing rules within one month. With more than 600 PLV vacancies reportedly lying unfilled and a selection list submitted to DSLSA as far back as October 2025, the order brings a degree of timelines to a process that had stalled without explanation.
The Dispute Before the High Court
The petitioners, Sidharth Yadav and another law student from the Faculty of Law, University of Delhi, appeared in person. They told the court that they had applied to become Para-Legal Volunteers under the NALSA scheme and that Respondents 4, 5, and 6 — the Legal Aid Society (Campus Law Centre), the Legal Aid Society (Law Centre-II), and the University of Delhi respectively — had run a formal selection process in September 2025.
Following that process, the most eligible students were selected and a list of candidates was forwarded to DSLSA (Respondent No. 1) on 28 October 2025. DSLSA then communicated to the University bodies that a valedictory function to initiate training would be organised around 21–23 November 2025. That function was “abruptly put on hold,” according to counsel for Respondents 4 to 6.
DSLSA then issued a communication dated 21 April 2026, which the petitioners challenged as arbitrary and discriminatory. They argued it violated Article 14 of the Constitution and asked the court to quash it, direct DSLSA to schedule PLV training in a time-bound manner, and require the framing of transparent guidelines for PLV induction.
The Legal Framework: Who Can Be a PLV
DSLSA’s counsel, Mr. Harsh Prabhakar, drew the court’s attention to the NALSA Scheme for Para-Legal Volunteers (Revised). The scheme sets out approximately ten categories of persons from whom PLVs may be selected. These include retired teachers, retired government servants, MSW students, Anganwadi workers, doctors, members of NGOs, women’s self-help groups, and “Students & Law Students (till they enroll as lawyers).”
The court read the scheme to mean that law students are one of ten eligible feeder categories, not a preferred or exclusive one. Critically, the scheme fixes no proportion specifying how many PLVs must come from any particular stream.
The petitioners had also invoked Regulation 5(4) of the National Legal Services Authority (Legal Aid Clinics) Regulations, 2011, which they said specifically provides for law students to be inducted as PLVs and is encouraged by NALSA. The court did not disturb that reading, but treated the multi-stream structure of the revised scheme as the operative framework for DSLSA’s selection exercise.
DSLSA’s counsel also clarified that even though DSLSA is a State-level body, PLVs are appointed at the District level, making the District Legal Services Authority committee the appropriate selecting authority under the scheme.
How the Court Reasoned
Justice Jasmeet Singh read the NALSA scheme carefully and concluded that the selection of PLVs involves a multi-step process: shortlisting eligible candidates from all streams, followed by selection by a committee chaired by the Chairman of the District Legal Services Authority. The court found no basis to mandate that law students be selected ahead of candidates from other eligible categories, or to fix a numerical quota for them.
Given that structure, the court held that it could not direct DSLSA to recruit specifically from the University of Delhi list forwarded in October 2025, nor could it compel DSLSA to treat law students as a preferred stream. What the court could do, and did, was direct the committee to complete the selection exercise under existing rules as quickly as possible.
The court also took note of a practical concern: third-year students, who formed part of the selected pool, would be graduating soon. If selection was delayed further, they would cease to be law students and would no longer fall within the eligible category at all. The judgment records an expectation — framed as such rather than as a mandatory direction — that the committee keep this fact in mind and “hopefully give them preference.”
The petitioners had separately sought directions to frame fresh, uniform, and transparent guidelines or SOPs for PLV induction. The court did not issue any such directions, confining itself to the more narrow relief of asking the committee to act within the existing framework expeditiously.
Outcome
The petition was disposed of on 14 August 2026. Justice Jasmeet Singh directed that the DSLSA selection committee conclude the PLV selection process in accordance with the extant rules and regulations within one month from the date of the order. The court expressed the expectation that third-year students would be given preference given their imminent completion of their courses, but stopped short of making that a binding direction.
No costs were awarded. The request to quash DSLSA’s communication dated 21 April 2026 and the request to mandate fresh SOP guidelines were not granted.