Supreme Court news: Reiterating that free legal aid is a fundamental right, the Supreme Court has flagged systemic delays that leave prisoners without timely access to appeals, and issued a comprehensive framework to fix the problem. A bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and Nongmeikapam Kotiswar Singh was hearing an appeal filed by death row convict Shankar Mahto, whose conviction and sentence had been upheld by the Patna High Court on February 20, 2014. “Free legal aid is a fundamental right and that it attaches from the moment the accused is first produced before a Magistrate and not only at the commencement of the trial,” the bench said on April 16, referring to the top court’s earlier verdict. Justices Sanjay Karol and Nongmeikapam Kotiswar Singh held that the timelines prescribed in the SOP would be binding, particularly in criminal legal aid cases.…