Established in 1981, Lawyers Collective is one of the leading public interest service providers in India with a proven record of setting high standards in human rights advocacy, legal aid and litigation.
Lawyers Collective was formed at a time of important changes in the Indian judicial system. The traditional paradigm of an adversarial judicial process—where only the person whose interest is prejudiced may move the court—was being replaced by a more expansive notion of judicial function. Courts undertook the process of judicial review and there was a liberalisation of the rule of the law of locus standi. Both developments made the judiciary more accessible to disadvantaged sections of society who were denied their rights, enabled individuals and groups of people to move the courts on matters of common concern arising from dishonest or ineffective governance and increased public participation in the process of constitutional adjudication. Such litigation came to be known as public interest litigation.
