Mumbai : Government Law College, K.C. Law College and Jitendra Chauhan College of Law are among the colleges in the city that have been placed under ‘no admission’ by the Bar Council of India for this academic year.
The colleges had not fulfilled teacher-student ratio norms as mandated by the Bar Council of India, which sets standards in legal education. While the BCI norms stipulate a teacher-student ratio of 1:40, many of these colleges have as less as two to three teachers for about 900 students, said a law college principal.
These colleges, being government-aided could not appoint faculty on their own. Several letters they had written to the government to fill these posts had fallen on deaf ears.
“We had given these colleges a ‘no admission’ status in 2013 for lacking faculty, but they had asked for time all these years, which the BCI had given. But this time, we decided not to do that,” said a source from the BCI.
While it was necessary for law colleges to be recognised by the BCI and follow its norms, the BCI was taken lightly earlier. With a Bombay High Court judgement last month which said that only law colleges approved by the BCI be allowed to admit students, the government approached the BCI for a list of approved colleges.
Many law colleges had not even applied to the BCI for recognition, for instance, New Law College, Matunga. It has been penalised over 19 lakhs. Some colleges have been penalised over 30 lakhs. The pending inspection fees that they had to pay the BCI amounted to this. Out of 127 law colleges in the state, 64 were non-compliant. Totally, there are over 10 law colleges in the state which have been blacklisted in Friday’s meeting. This includes the city colleges.
Over 50 of the non-compliant 64 colleges will now be allowed to conduct admissions once they pay their inspection fee dues to the BCI. Many of them will be applying for BCI approval for the first time. “We have given them a week’s time to pay up. Only then we can prepare a list of approved colleges,” said the BCI source.
The decision was taken by the BCI in a meeting in New Delhi which was presided over by the Bar Council Chairman Justice A P Mishra.
