Abstract: Background and Objective: Soil salinity causes major inhibition in growth and productivity of legumes cultivars. Thus, it is necessary to protect legume crops grown in saline soil by cost effective, eco-friendly and farmer friendly methods. Present study investigated the degree of damage caused by salinity stress on ascorbate-glutathione cycle of some legumes and its possible reversal by priming of seeds with mild dose of NaCl. Materials and Methods: Experiments were carried out with the seedlings germinated from non pretreated and pretreated seeds (halo primed with 50 mM NaCl) of arhar (Cajanus cajan L. Mill sp. cv T120), maskalai (Vigna mungo L. Hepper cv. WBU109) and khesari (Lathyrus sativus L. cv. Nirmal) to characterize the toxic effects of sodium chloride on oxidative stress markers and glutathione metabolism of test seedlings and its possible reversal by NaCl pretreatment. Statistical analyses were performed by two-sided Student’s t-test (considered statistically significant at p<0.05, p<0.01 and p<0.001) and regression analyses were done using Minitab 17 software. Results: Salinity resulted in increased amount of total glutathione contents (136% in root and 39% in shoot of arhar, 103% in root and 67% in shoot of khesari and 86% in root and 81% in shoot of maskalai) and reduction in ascorbate contents (reduced by 15% in root and 18% in shoot of arhar, 13% in root and 20% in shoot of khesari and 14% in root and 21% in shoot of maskalai) in all the three tested legume cultivars. The variations in the above contents were due to differential activities of antioxidant and glutathione metabolizing enzymes as well as altered levels of oxidative stress markers under NaCl stress. However, by adopting pretreatment technology, such damage was found to be altered in pretreated legume seedlings variably promoting better growth. Conclusion: NaCl primed seeds exhibited significant alterations of all the tested parameters in legume seedlings that might promote better agricultural productivity in saline prone soils.