Bar Council of India has recently framed a set of new Rules known as ‘Rules of Legal Education – 2008’. All law colleges in India are directed to implement these Rules and revised curriculum of law degree courses from the academic year 2009-2010. Law Colleges will be known as ‘Centres of Legal Education’ under these new Rules. The Bar Council of India, while framing these Rules, is guided by the motive of improving the standard of legal education.Approval: Henceforth BCI will grant either ‘Temporary Approval’ or ‘Regular Approval’ to the Centres of Legal Education. ‘Regular Approval’ is also a kind of temporary approval, because it is valid for maximum five years. There is no provision for ‘Permanent Approval’. All law colleges who may have been earlier granted permanent approval will now be included in the category of ‘Regular Approval’ by virtue of definition of ‘Regular Approval’; in consequence, it seems, they will have to apply to BCI every five years for continuing their approval. Already law colleges are required to seek accreditation by NAAC and again re-accreditation every five years. Law Colleges which have obtained temporary affiliation of University (majority of law colleges are such) are required to apply to their Universities periodically for their continuation of affiliation. The college administration has to face three different types of Inspection Committees now and then. This is very burdensome on law colleges and may also affect devotion of college administration to academic matters.
Thirty Subjects: Till 1998, total number of subjects prescribed by BCI for Three Year LL.B. Course was 18. BCI increased the number of subjects from 18 to 28 with effect from the academic year 1998 – 1999. Ten subjects in addition! Now from the year 2009 – 2010 BCI has once again increased this number from 28 to 30 i.e. two additional subjects now. No doubt, good intention of BCI is to increase and update the legal knowledge of law students. However, thrusting 30 subjects on a law student in three years period, to my mind, is excessive burden on him and a kind of his academic and intellectual harassment. Moreover, merely by studying 30 subjects one cannot expect that such law students would invariably become perfect and successful advocates. There are about 3000 laws in existence now. By studying 30 laws, a student gains knowledge of simply 1% of law. It is really after a person gets enrolled as an advocate that he starts studying various laws in which he wants to practise and thus gets real knowledge at the stage of his professional career. In my view, only basic and foundational knowledge of some important substantive and procedural laws is all that is needed to be imparted to law student which may roughly comprise 21 law subjects in three years duration i.e. 7 subjects per year. It is not quantity but quality that matters.
Integrated Five Years Course: Curriculum of Integrated Five Year Degree Course now requires certain changes to be made by the Universities. One major subject having six papers and two minor subjects, each with three papers will have to be provided in this curriculum. In addition, English will be a compulsory subject. The students of this course are expected to learn at least one foreign or Indian language.
Internship: Under these new Rules every law student is required to complete minimum of 12 weeks of Internship for Three Year LL.B. Course and 20 weeks for Five Year Integrated Degree Course during the entire period of legal studies. The students’ placement under NGOs, Law Firms, Companies, Local Self Government, Trial and Appellate Advocates etc. would be necessary. Some part of Diwali and summer vacation can be utilised for this purpose.
Age Limit: The maximum age for seeking admission to Five Year Integrated Degree Course is limited to 20 years in case of general category of students and 22 years for SC, ST and other backward community students. For Three Year LL.B. Degree Course, this age limit is 30 years for general category of students; University being empowered to extend this limit to 35 years for the students belonging to SC, ST or any other backward Community. This is a new provision. BCI wants to see that only young and fresh persons enter the Bar. However, right to practise any profession is a fundamental right of every citizen of India. Though reasonable restrictions in the interest of general public can be imposed on this right, putting age limit for professional education does not appear to be a reasonable restriction.
Faculty: BCI likes to use the phrase ‘Core Faculty’ for ‘full time faculty’ for the Centres of Legal Education. The Rules require the colleges running only Three Years LL.B. Course to be staffed by eight full time lecturers and where both the Courses are run, ten full time lecturers would be needed. To be qualified as law lecturer, one should have obtained LL.M. Degree with minimum of 55% marks and also cleared NET or SET examination. I think all over India there is paucity of candidates eligible for being a full time lecturer. In my judgment, 90% law colleges presently do not have this number of Core Faculty and the chances that these colleges could be able to recruit required number of full time faculty in near future are very bleak. The new Rules also provide that if there is no required number of full time faculty in any college, admission in the next academic year would be suspended. If this Rule is implemented strictly, the consequences to large number of law colleges would be disastrous.
While marching towards excellence in academic arena, it is desirable to find out via media between ideal and practical considerations. Striking a balance between pragmatic and dogmatic approach will be highly appreciated!
