In November 2013 the Bar Council of India (BCI) amended its Legal Education Rules 2008 and, for years following that (as reported by us last week), has been sending repeated letters to law schools, telling them it was obligatory to buy lakhs worth of products of the All India Reporter (AIR).
Around nine months before that November resolution, on 16 and 17 February 2013, the AIR was the exclusive “official sponsor” of the Bar Council of India’s (BCI) golden jubilee celebrations in Delhi, which included heavy AIR branding at the event attended by then prime minister Manmohan Singh and other dignitaries.
Judging by the amount of AIR sponsorship (see pictures below) and what such marketing costs at most for-profit conferences, AIR must have paid the BCI lakhs of Rupees to become the event’s official sponsor.
Long after the event and jubilee had finished, the BCI continued pushing the AIR onto law schools; vice chancellors had reacted with bewilderment to the regulator’s interference in their vendor-and library-book-selection process.
On 1 June 2014, the BCI admitted in a resolution that its prescription of a single vendor’s products were “unfair”, and purported to repeal the requirement for law schools to buy AIR products.
But several months later again amended its rules to make AIR products obligatory, in April 2015 adding additional AIR products to the list of materials required by law school libraries, again circulating letters to all Indian law schools.
While we have no evidence at present that the BCI amending its rules had any relation to the AIR’s sponsorship, the facts in the public domain and the lack of transparency at the BCI leave a lot of unanswered questions.
When contacted by phone today, AIR managing director Sumant Chitaley confirmed that AIR had sponsored the BCI’s jubilee, but when asked about the BCI’s subsequent promotion of AIR products, he said we should refer any queries to the BCI.
“No actually we have got no connection,” Chitaley said. “We did sponsor but the connections, what you are telling me, it’s better no you ask the bar council? I have no comment because all that things are things what the bar council has to do. It has to look into its committees.”
BCI chairman Manan Kumar Mishra has not replied to an email requesting a comment that was sent by us on Saturday (4 June).
The BCI has not published its meeting minutes on the AIR or most of its affairs on its website. This is in breach of its statutory obligation and the Central information Commission has warned Mishra that it will impose maximum penalty on him if the BCI does not comply with this legal requirement under the Right to Information Act 2005.
There ain’t no party like a BCI party
The BCI had celebrated its golden jubilee year – the 50th year since its establishment - from 16 February 2013 to 1 March 2014 with a series of events.
The 16 and 17 February 2013 inaugural ceremony was launched by then-prime minister Manmohan Singh at Vigyan Bhavan in Delhi.
According to 70 photos posted by AIR to its Facebook page on 27 February 2013, it was a swanky affair with lots of dignitaries (click here to view Facebook page):
And it was well-attended too:
AIR’s logo could be seen on the massive backdrop on which dignitaries sat on the main stage, which was crowded by huge flower arrangements:
The backdrop to the smaller stage had AIR branding all over it:
the podium at which Manmohan Singh and other dignitaries spoke had an AIR logo peeking out behind some more flowers:
and AIR goodie bags and a book store seem to have been on offer:
And that’s not all. There was even a dedicated “air café” apparently set up on the for the duration of the event in Vigyan Bhavan, presumably serving AIR coffee:
The publisher had apparently taken over entire walls of the venue with advertising and marketing:
No other logos of sponsors are visible, at least on AIR’s photos, but on 15 January 2013 the BCI had released a notification on its website inviting “article, advertisement and message to be published in Souvenir” that would be released on the jubilee’s inaugural ceremony on 16 February.
Still in the midst of its jubilee year, BCI starts aggressively pushing AIR to law schools
The Bar Council of India (BCI), under the Legal Education Rules 2008, prescribes the minimum library expenditure which a law school must make in order to be approved to admit students.
In November 2013 – the BCI’s golden jubilee year – it passed a resolution amending the Legal Education Rules to add the AIR manual as a minimum library requirement for law schools. As per schedule III, clause 15:
To start with, a Law Library shall have a set of AIR manual, Central Acts and Local Acts, Criminal law journal, SCC, Company cases, Indian Bar Review, selected Judgements on Professional Ethics and Journals with the back volumes for at least ten years and also such number of text books in each subjects taught during the period according to the minimum standard ratio of ten books for each registered students [….]
The AIR manual, which is one of the products of AIR, was the only branded case report mentioned in addition to SCC, which the BCI included in this clause.
The SCC owned by EBC Publishing Pvt Ltd, is by most accounts, the conclusive authority on Supreme Court case reports and also produces other court case reports.
Other publishers in the space offering similar digital or other products, but not included in the BCI’s list, are Lexis Nexis, Manupatra and Thomson Reuters.
Discounted letter package
After the November 2013 resolution, the BCI sent a January 2014 letter that cited a 2013 resolution of the BCI to buy “AIR products with 58% discount… on the occasion of Golden Jubilee year”. In this letter, the BCI helpfully also provided contact details of AIR.
After a number of law schools stiffly opposed the BCI’s interference in vendor-selection, the BCI passed a 17 June 2014 resolution noting that
it is not fair to make compulsory to purchase the law journals published by the All India Reporter (AIR) […]
it is not necessary to purchase the books/journals from a particular seller/company.
BCI’s hiatus marketing AIR short-lived
But by April 2015 the BCI was back to floating AIR product proposals to law schools.
In a 26 April 2015 resolution, it recommended to amend the Legal Education Rules to include an electronic combo version of the AIR, in the minimum library requirement. In this recommendation, the AIR electronic combo was offered at a discounted price of Rs 2.6 lakh reduced from Rs 3 lakh. The electronic combo version included the AIR manual among other products.
The amendment was approved in the BCI’s 2 May 2015 meeting, and a letter to law schools to comply with the amendment was sent on 17 February 2016.
Mishra’s earlier response re AIR
Mishra did not respond to an emailed request for comment since Friday.
However, he had earlier responded to our request for comment on our story last week about the BCI imposing AIR products on law schools against their wishes.
Excerpts below:
BCI is a statutory autonomous body , it does not require your or that foreigners permission to include any book or material in the syllabus of Law Institutions. […]
The decision with regard to AIR has also been taken after consideration by a High Level body of BCI. Moreover it is the prerogative of the Council to take such decisions.
The Legal Education Committee examines minimum Library requirements for an Institution . It has decided that materials of AIR electronic & other ,Central Acts , Local Acts , SCC , Corporate Law Advisor , Company Cases Indian Bar Review & other journals are the minimum requirements . AIR is the oldest Law Journal covering all the High Corts. E- library is one of the requirement for every law institution . We are sorry to say that we can't prescribe the study material of legally India for the institutions. Yours is simply a guess paper ; no scope . If you or some of your other friends have a good book or journal for the students of Law , you or he may also apply & present the book / journal before BCI or LEC and if found fit it can be included. It does not require any tender or advertisement .
Read Mishra’s full emailed response here.
For the avoidance of doubt, other than the Barhacker online All India Bar Exam (AIBE) preparation courses, Legally India does not have any interests in any study materials or journals or books, nor have we ever approached anyone at the BCI about any such product.
Full disclosure: BCI chairman Manan Kumar Mishra has sent a defamation legal notice to Legally India regarding stories published pointing out the problems with the AIBE Legally India in its response had denied defaming the BCI or its chairman since all reports were based on facts.
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www.huffingtonpost.in/2016/06/04/bar-council-of-india_n_10293204.html
www.scoopwhoop.com/bar-council-of-india-shameful-notice-lift/
All courts, all lawyers and all law schools refer to AIR only when it comes to finding report of Privy Council, Federal Court and even Supreme Court till at least 1969.
In such situation, no fault should be found if Bar Council of India insists on AIR.
FYI I am subscriber of SCC, have no connection with AIR or to any office bearer of Bar Council of India.
www.tribuneindia.com/2007/20070527/spectrum/main1.htm
Most commentaries provide citations in AIR. Most High Court judgements are referred to from AIR.
AIR is second probably only to SCC, which has its own limitations, SCC covers only supreme Court.
The quality of AIR and its headnotes cannot be questioned. It is an essential book to have in a library.
You are entitled to fight the BCI on whatever other issues you want to, some may be justified. But I think this is a wrong corner.
Also please tell me who else, except law books and journal publishers will sponsor a BCI event. Who gives you revenue through ads, people related to law right.
Anyway, even if it is made as a quid pro quo to sponsoring an event, the fact that AIR is as good as it is, makes your argument weak.
As I understand it, AIR has faced a lot of competition, particularly in the digital space from the likes of Manupatra, Thomson Reuters or Lexis Nexis databases, which also cover all of the same courts, etc.
If a law college decides to buy subscriptions to SCC, Manupatra, Thomson Reuters and Lexis Nexis instead of AIR, what concern should it be of the BCI?
And the close nexus in time between sponsorship of the jubilee event and making AIR obligatory, is prima facie very suspicious.
In view of the same I am happy that law schools are forced to buy AIR. The real mischief of BCI is in not reining in errant law schools that are granting degrees to whoever pays them.
Similarly, I agree it's not a bad thing to mandate that law colleges have minimum library investments. But particularly as budgets of law schools are limited, and since law schools anyway have to spend Rs 1.5 lakh on their libraries according to the rules, why can the BCI decide that all of this should be eaten up by AIR products?
Shouldn't a law school arguably be able to choose to buy some cheaper electronic database for case laws (which would be sufficient for 99% of purposes and is probably more often used in actual legal practice too), plus buy a few other journals, textbooks and foreign case reports, for instance?
Here's what one VC said in our previous story:
Quote:www.legallyindia.com/law-schools/bci-pimps-all-india-reporter-to-law-schools-through-legal-education-rules-amendment
I think those points are valid and have not been answered by the BCI at all...
Further, having good experience in a non-metropolitan city court, I can say with full confidence that AIR is the most referred journal there. Please bear in mind that law students in non metropolitan cities are not that tech savvy so as to be taught on lexis-nexis platform. I once had manupatra subscription, but due to its too frequent spelling mistakes dropped it. So manaupatra too is not a good option. Further no law school is having a modest budget. If they are having modest budget, how are they arranging BCI recognition. I have serious doubts about the integrity of BCI inspections.
Re AIR - I would agree with you re tech savvy, but isn't the BCI forcing colleges to take electronic subscriptions to the AIR in their notice? At that point there are many options and similar products, surely...
I also have serious doubts about BCI inspections. BCI recognition really shouldn't be that expensive I think (will need to check the figures), but nevertheless, Rs 3 lakh spent on AIR are enough to pay a teacher's salary for half a year or more, and with more than 1,200 law schools (or probably more now) having mushroomed on the BCI's watch, god knows what their budgets or priorities are like.
www.legallyindia.com/201412095408/Law-schools/in-two-years-number-of-law-schools-increased-from-800-to-1-200-now-bci-hopes-to-put-brake-on-mushrooming-epidemic
Yes for the electronic subscription part, AIR cannot and should not be thrust.
I request you to visit some law college in some small town and make public all your observations regarding the facilities there.
It left me wondering, what happened to 66% attendance requirements? How did the BCI continue the recognition of the law college?
And as regards to spelling errors, would you want your publisher to make changes in the judgments?
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