A high-powered expert commission on GNLU Gandhinagar criticised director Prof Bimal Patel’s appointment to his present post, as well as his manner of penalising students at the law school.
NLSIU Bangalore’s founding vice chancellor NR Madhava Menon and former Law Commission of India member HC Dholakia submitted a 41-page draft report of GNLU’s first ever school review in January, suggesting changes to the “defective” appointment procedure for the law school’s head.
They also raised the law school’s faculty and administrative staff deficit, the policy of extracting heavy fines from students, lack of effective grievance redressal mechanisms for faculty and students, and examination rules.
The report, which also indicated that GNLU’s quality of education may not be commensurate with the fees collected from students, was not signed by the third member of the commission, former IIM Ahmedabad director Bakul Dholakia. It was first published by legal blog Stripped Law. [Full report available on scribd]
The commission sat three times – on 1 August 2012, 24 September 2012, and 7 to 9 January 2013 - and considered written faculty submissions, views expressed in two rounds of faculty meetings, a “voluminous memorandum of facts and opinions” signed by 450 GNLU students, and suggestions in meetings with the administrative staff.
Professorial void
While the law school’s sanctioned faculty strength was 65, including five professors, GNLU currently had only 35 faculty members including one professor who was promoted to the designation after March 2012.
The commission noted that this was a “sad situation” because management committees at the universities were being headed by assistant professors or associate professors “lacking requisite experience”.
It didn’t find it appropriate that senior academic positions such as that of dean of academic affairs or co-ordinator of research studies were held by assistant or associate professors.
The commission pointed out in its report that:
“the university certainly needs atleast half a dozen senior faculty members (Professors) to handle P.G. classes, supervise work of centres of studies, guide the research and training activities of the institution and assist the Director in administration.”
“If competent persons are not available for regular service, they may be engaged on contract for five years or more from among retired scholars or other scholars of eminence. This is an urgent necessity for GNLU to pick up speed in its academic development.”
It also pointed out that the law school’s chairman post was lying vacant and that the post of whole-time regular registrar was not yet filled.
Outstanding vice chancellor
Taking note of Regulation 9 of the GNLU Act, which provides that “the Director shall be an academic person and an outstanding scholar in law with published work of high quality to his credit”, the commission criticised the current selection procedure for filling the post at GNLU.
Currently, clause (4) of Regulation 8 of the Act gives GNLU’s executive council the power to override a statutory search committee’s recommendations for the post of the director and bring in their own choice. The commission wrote:
“This clause (4), in effect, nullifies the recommendations of the Search Committee and tends to defeat the very purpose of a search by an expert group. Further it provides for the appointment of a person whose name may not have been found fit by the Search Committee, or even rejected by the Search Committee. This provision – Clause (4) – in fact, makes a mockery of the provision for a Search Committee.”
Patel was appointed to his present post after GNLU’s executive council overrode the recommendations of a statutorily appointed director search committee, according to the minutes of an 11 September 2008 executive council meeting seen by Legally India.
Barred association
GNLU has prohibited students forming a student bar association and instead provides the following redressal mechanism, according to a note from Patel:
(a) Free access to Director and members of the faculty to seek redressal of grievances.
(b) An Appeal Council to provide a platform for staff members in case of an irregularity or contestable decision by any functionary of University.
(c) Mentorship by faculty members of students and regular mentor meets to address personal problems of students
The commission noted the existence of “communication gaps” between the students and the administration, and “apprehension of victimization” on voicing grievances on part of the students:
“An effective grievances redressal mechanism need to be set up, or the existing arrangement revamped, so as to inspire confidence amongst the students and the teachers, that their concerns will be effectively addressed by the administration.”
“Effective steps may be initiated to set up a Students Bar Association or a Representative Council and a Faculty Consultative Council so as to provide constructive outlet to ventilate the aspirations of the students and teachers.”
Policing school
The commission expressed a low view of the strict disciplinary measures and examination rules at the university, which it thought were unnecessary.
“Discipline is variously understood in universities. Fine, suspension, expulsion etc. are to be reserved for extreme situations which seldom happens in an elite law school aspiring world class status. Commanding attendance in class under threat of detention does not speak well of the quality of teaching.”
In later passages it added that “examination is a vexed issue which has already created some mistrust between teachers and students at GNLU. Therefore it needs immediate attention and necessary correction”, recommending a grading system instead of a marks-based system and teacher autonomy in regard to evaluation crieria for GNLU’s examination system.
Legally India had reported that five GNLU third year students had challenged its examination rules in the Gujarat High Court last year and that one student made a criminal complaint of atrocity against Patel after having been frisked and fined for possessing cigarettes.
Truly world class
While the commission praised the campus facilities at the university, it noted that GNLU could use a “policy of insisting on teachers living in the campus”.
“Already teachers are grudging that they are being compelled to stay on the campus for eight hours a day which they consider to be violative of UGC rules!! There is need for change of this attitude and teachers should voluntarily stay in the accommodation provided by the university.”
The commission did not find the need to conduct a detailed financial audit, given that it perceived no financial irregularities at GNLU.
However, the commission did note that “the per capita expenditure is fairly high compared to the expenditure on legal education elsewhere in the State”, with 1,200 students admitted to the law school seeing Rs 150 crore capital expenditure on infrastructure and Rs 12 crore annual current expenditure.
It wrote that 76 per cent of this expenditure was recovered from fees charge to students.
“This can be justified only in terms of high quality education offered comparable to the best in the circumstances. In other words, GNLU may sooner or later will be confronted with the issue of quality of instruction in relation to the quantity of fees collected,” concluded the report.
Patel did not respond to phone calls and messages seeking comment.
In 2012 a similar report on Nalsar Hyderabad also identified problems in college administration, while in 2009 Justice KT Thomas lambasted NLSIU Bangalore in a report for decreasing academic standards and students’ lifestyles.
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So badly hoping that he does not get renewed again or else GNLU is gone forever ! And Dr. Patel, will be immortal and make more and more money and more and more contacts !
The clear lack of coherence and articulacy amongst faculty adds to sub-standard education in the college.
Additionally, some of the students who've been admitted under the "NRI category" is substantially more than the number mentioned officially.
As 'GNLUite' has already pointed above, the re-appointment of Mr. Patel would lead nothing but the downfall of GNLU.
Best wishes
Prachi
Bimal Sir, majority of students are with you!
I would request all student and well wisher of GNLU to post message of support for Bimal Sir.
SO. For the benefit of others, let me just point out who you (commenter) are. Bimal Patel runs a sort of PR agency to spread and further popularize his fake and false image of being an expert in international law, of being an "able" administrator, of being student friendly, of being loved by students (LoL) etc etc. This includes some selected GNLU students who do all the feet licking for some covert favours from him.
To summarize my (and everyone else's) frustration: Bimal doesn't have a undergrad degree in law. He doesn't know the difference between a leading case and landmark case. If you tell him that he doesn't have the authority to do something (as per GNLU Act and Regulations), he'll say he has the "moral authority" to do so. He believes in universal jurisdiction (so even if I'm found smoking a cigarette at Kargil or Indira Point, I can still be fined Rs. 2500/-). He is a politician and politics is his way of life (close to Modi, aspires to be the Law Minister of Gujarat). He says that while he was in "The THE Hague", the library there would only open upto 8 pm (so when we said that the Univ library should stay open beyond midnight during exams, he threatened to close it by 8 instead). [...]
^I just wrote this para because I wanted to vent out some of that frustration. It has no end.
He term can't be renewed. If there is anyone out there in power who loves the extremely talented and capable student community at GNLU even one bit, please make sure Bimal Patel doesn't get another term as the VC of GNLU.
All of this is even more painful when you see who his predecessors were. The founding chairman of GNLU was Late Shri Kirit N Rawal, former Solicitor General of India, whose initial idea was to have the GNLU campus right next to the Gujarat High Court so that sitting judges and senior advocates could take lectures at GNLU in the evenings. A truly noble idea of the NLU meant to churn out lawyers improve the quality of the bar and the bench. However, within 8 months of GNLU's inauguration, Mr. Rawal passed away. Prof VS Mani, a reputed legal scholar and considered to be an authority in Public International Law, was GNLU's VC from 2003 to 2008. But then, 2009-present, systemic destruction of the original idea of GNLU has been persistently pursued by Bimal Patel. But the GNLU student community is and always will be too strong for him. However, there has been a lot of collateral damage in this 4.5 year war which is undesirable and MUST END NOW.
A LOT of good things have also happened to GNLU in the past 5 years. GNLU has been in news for a number of goods reasons also. BUT, YOU DARE NOT use those to support Bimal Patel's false profile. Don't say that "all of that happened because Bimal Patel made it happen."
INSTEAD, say "Imagine what all GNLU could have achieved had this Bimal Patel not stagnated its growth with his stupid, [...], obsolete, irrational [...] actions".
#loveGNLU
#hateBimpa
Bimal Patel is not a scholar of repute, his books are either written by the faculty or are meaningless compilations published thanks to his never-ending influence. I mean he actually copy-pasted all the ICJ judgments since 1950 and got that published. He doesn't even have an LLB for gods sake. How can he be a VC of an institution that claims to be world class in the making? [...]
I regret the day I joined GNLU. [...] Btw, barely 6 or 7 people were placed this year by the only 2 firms that bother coming to GNLU. The rest don't consider it worth coming here to recruit. So I'd advise all readers not to pay much heed to comments in support of the VC, considering he or his secretary have probably planted those themselves. Trust me this stuff happens.
Thank you for your comment.
The report is very much authentic. We spoke to Prof Menon about it's existence three months ago.
Best wishes,
Prachi
Quoting kianganz:
Kian and Prachi, have you enquired when shall the official version be released? Lot can happen between a draft and final copy. I hope you shall follow up on the final report too...
Firstly, a memorandum was signed by around 450 students that dealt with the grievances of students. There were many more that were genuinely scared to sign the memo lest 'backlash'. So, the students that support Mr. Patel and his policies are a minority and very few in number.
Secondly, The findings of the commission bring relief to the students as we were already aware of most of them and it was heartening to know that Mr. Menon and Mr. Dholakia could recognize the faults of the college and its administration. We thank you for the fair, thorough and unbiased enquiry.
Thirdly, yes, Mr. Patel is not fit for the institution. His policies and decisions have always been questionable and illogical. Like 'universal jurisdiction', forced internships etc. HIs qualification is a big question mark.
There is a severe need to look into the administration of the college and it would be in the benefit of GNLU and its students if Mr. Patel continues.
All GNLU students who are interested in academics support Prof Patel.
i know the way he taught Public International Law to the 3rd years...a man who is incompetent to teach the very basics of sources of international law along with his assistant who proudly calls ''opinio juris'' means opinion of jurists...hahahaha...what a sham
Just to clarify, we talked to Prof Menon about the report but we never had the copy of the report until now. Our requests to Prof Patel to see a copy were not entertained.
Best wishes,
Prachi
GNLU has raised its standards in past few years and competing with top law schools.
How it is possible that he suddenly changed his mind for GNLU academics?
I am sure that critics will not be able to digest the genuine compliments for GNLU..
Isn't it curious that the report is not received by University?
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