Social Audit: A Tool to Access Social Justice

The concept of social audit emerged in the 1990s from the right to information movement, led by civil society organisations in the central part of Rajasthan and later spread across the country. The idea of transparency and accountability in public policy has been discussed now for three decades. The movement on transparency and accountability was one of the improved efforts that argue for the people’s participation in planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation with adequate transparency and accountability in the public management system. The tool of social audit introduced legally in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MG-NREGA) has turned out to be one of the effective ways to access justice at grassroots to the rural labourers. The institutionalization of the social audit in various states is one of the progressive steps taken by the government of India. The purpose behind this is to improve the public management system and empower the people. The idea of justice has been widely discussed theoretically by various social and political thinkers such as J.S. Mill, John Rolls, J. Bentham, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar and so on. They have given theories of how and in what ways justice can be achieved. The tool of social audit has aimed to bring transparency and accountability in the government system and empower the poor. And by this way, it acts as one of the effective ways to access justice. This chapter is based on a research study conducted in Buldhana and the Aurangabad districts of Maharashtra. It is built on secondary data collected by using various tools such as in-depth interviews, participatory observation through the social audit processes. The key findings of the study show that the tool of social audit found out how labourers who committed suicide due to delayed payment got justice. Similarly, social audits conducted in the above-mentioned districts not only helped to access justice to the victim labourers and their families but also contributed to their empowerment processes.