Law graduates of 70 colleges won’t be allowed to practise

Colleges which received letters, a list of which was accessed by The Sunday Express, range from private postgraduate law colleges in Gujarat, Garhwal and Azamgarh to government colleges like the 50-year-old University Law College, North Bengal, and Osmania University’s law college.

The BCI has asked all law colleges to get themselves inspected by the council to ensure that the 2008 Legal Education Rules are being followed. The council has also demanded Rs 1.5 lakh per centre as  inspection fee from the colleges.

“Letters stating that students of this year’s batch from these colleges should not be enrolled as advocates, have been signed and will be sent to these colleges and state bar associations,” BCI Secretary J R Sharma said.

Unless these colleges submit for inspection, students who enrolled in 2011-12 will not be eligible for enrollment by state bar councils.
Meanwhile, the standoff between the BCI and the DU continues.

Speaking to The Sunday Express on Saturday, Faculty of Law Dean Ashwini Kumar Bansal questioned the authority of the BCI to issue such orders. “The BCI has taken an arbitrary and illegal decision. The letter purportedly sent on September 22 has not even reached DU till date. The Law Faculty has been running since 1924, while BCI rules were made only in 2008. This is the first time that they have asked for such an inspection. The BCI’s authority to issue such rules is suspect,” Bansal said.

However, he added that DU was ready to “sit down with the BCI and take constructive steps” so that the students’ future is protected. The BCI, however, said the Advocates’ Act of 1961 gives it authority over legal education in the country.

Meanwhile, Law faculty students held a protest outside the campus on Saturday.

The faculty’s Students’ Union president Brijesh Yadav said that students have been consulting lawyers on whether they should approach the High Court for relief. A delegation of students also met the BCI Chairman and senior lawyers on Saturday to discuss the issue, Yadav said.

“The condition on campus is really bad. None of the rules made by the BCI are being followed. We also filed an RTI application to find out the status of the faculty’s approval, but have received no reply so far,” Tarun Narang, a student, said.

To assuage students, the faculty has put up notices on campus stating that the university administration was “fully seized of the matter” and that students need not panic.”