This action-research project is a pilot study examining the systemic factors and constraints that influence access to economic and social rights in India. The project is concentrates on how the justice system affects the rights of individuals in both rural and urban contexts. The project looks at the key stakeholders – such as litigants, lawyers, and law enforcers – to gauge the realization and enforcement of economic and social rights.  Prior to this project, most scholarly investigation concerning the Indian legal system focused on access to the higher tier of the judiciary – the High Courts and the Supreme Court. Realizing the need for an examination of the lower judiciary – lower courts, sub-district courts, administrative and quasi-judicial tribunals – NCAS is partnering with the Centre for Social Justice, Ahmedabad, Professor Jayanth Krishnan of the University of Indiana Maurer School of Law, and Professor Marc Galanter of the University of Wisconsin-Madison to address accessing justice in these under-researched forums. By focusing on economic and social rights, this project engages an action and research study to address how Indian judicial forums meet the needs of claimants and serve as instruments of justice. This research is being carried out in three states.

• Increasing the understanding of variations within the lower judiciary (in the different studied localities) in their ability to adjudicate economic and social rights;
• Empowering everyday claimants – particularly, women, tribal groups and religious minorities – who seek economic and social justice;
  
• Gaining further knowledge about how claimants perceive the procedural and substantive justice emanating from the lower judiciary.