JB is law college buddy of state law min. He struck deals with the ruling party when he was the CJ and was aided to arm twist the wise men in New Delhi to elevate his little bro as Cal HC judge. JB along with KD ensured that the Registrar position is kept vacant and then had one his minions fill in that position. The shadiness of it all was regularized by Lord Taluk and since then things have continued as JB pleased.

GB composition matters little. Half of these people do not attend or could care less. They convene at times for the convocation.

In the EC there is a position reserved for Fin Secy of the state. But check the records. For more than a decade or more the Fin Secy has not attended and wouldn't care. Just like the Edu Secy attends because his son....

KB inclusion is not a surprise as such. His protege KD is no longer in the EC. But he has other mates, such as JB, Lokayukt, CJI nominee etc and of course the man himself, NKC! The VC of course has his trusted horse(wo)men as well.

TMC has got way more control over NUJS now than any state has over any top NLU and that is an undeniable fact. SJA go to these people to ask for favours, so it is highly unlikely that they would raise any objection to this. Not that they have the capacity to even object meaningfully these days. Otherwise they would have kept tabs on the end of membership terms and pressurised the VC to suggest top notch academics and lawyers to be the new members.

There is one ex-Cal HC CJ in the GC, who is also an EC member. Retd. Justice Jyotirmoy Bhattacharya. Not that I disagree with your original point. Sandipan Ganguly from the looks of it is a fairly stand up guy though. The ministers and MPs are the worst. In addition, having ex judges is actually not a good thing because they conduct the proceedings as if it is a courtroom and not a university, with multiple deferrals etc. Unless the Chairperson who is the VC is a strong enough personality to steer and control proceedings, which NKC is not. There needs to be more academics though. And good ones. But having NLU VCs can work either way. Venkatarao for example did not create any problem while in the EC and GC. But Faizan sabotages all new programmes, curriculum updates and alum involvement in academics while in the AC.

I hope this post will be allowed because it has larger ramifications for legal education in India. In fact, I actually hope it is marked featured.

Here is the new NUJS GC, as published on the new website:

https://www.nujs.edu/home/about-nujs/organisational-structure/

Note these names:

1. Biman Banerjee, TMC MLA
2. Bratya Basu, TMC MLA and minister
3. Moloy Ghatak, TMC MLA and minister
4. Chandrima Bhattacharya. TMC MLA and minister
5. Kalyan Banerjee, TMC MP
6. Ashok Deb, TMC MLA
7. Sanjay Basu, lawyer for Abhishek Banerjee who regularly posts on social media in favour of TMC.
8. Sandipan Ganguly, advocate for TMC
9. Krishnakoli Basu, Associate Professor of Barrackpore Rastraguru Surendranath College (🤡), President of TMC-affiliated college teaching staff association.

Thus, over 1/3 of the GC have close TMC connections and most are actually MLAs or MPs of the TMC. In contrast, past members (during Menon/Chimni/MP Singh years) included former AGs and SGs like KK Venugopal, Gopal Subramanian and Dipankar Gupta. Also Justice Ruma Pal.

Also note that the VC of NLSIU is missing for the first time in the history of NUJS. Instead, we have the VCs of NLUJ, GNLU and DSNLU.

Also note that there is no partner from Khaitan & Co and Argus.

Also no alumni.

Now compare with the GC members of NLSIU:

1. 13 SC judges on NLSIU GC (minus the CJI) versus just 2 for NUJS
2. 5 state HC Chief Justices on NLSIU GC, versus 0 for NUJS, not even Cal HC CJI (🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡)
3. 5 alumni on NLSIU GC versus 0 for NUJS (the 5 are Sudhir, Poovayya, Aparna, Kunal Ambasta and Nigam)

Curious to know whether the NUJS SJA is going to do anything about this