don’t know about others - but I think you’d find it pretty difficult to pry away Nigam, Arun, or Sudhir from nls. It’s their home and they have all at some point tried to work in other universities and it’s not worked out. Because of their character it is unlikely that they will be willing to play ball on the corruption of academic standards in a place like Jgls also.

The obvious answer staring you all in the face is paddy. He’s gonna take over once raj is okay to step away. Not a scholar at all - but then again it’s more business than university.

Since it’s been announced that Jindal‘s future expansion will be STEM-focused, I think the next VC will be a STEM fellow. Eventually, Jindal‘s medical, dentistry and engineering schools will be the golden goose, not the Law school. You can get 8L a year from a law student, but you can get 20L a year from a med student, because Indians will do anything to get a medicine degree.

So I think Raj will be phased out into a mentorship role. As for Dipika, she will be sidelined because her feminist focus is falling out of favour with the management: it’s ideologically inconvenient and doesn’t fetch jobs either. She does have s PhD as week. Re Sreejith, I seem him heading for VCship or Deanship somewhere else.

In my view, the VC of JGU will always be from JGLS and not any other school, because JGLS is the largest and most influential. It also brings in the most money. I also think that the next VC will be someone with a degree from at least a top 25 QS law school, because Naveen Jindal is very brand conscious and such a tag impresses parents . This then rules out Sreejith and means one of the following people:

- Sudhir Krishnaswamy

- Nigam Nuggehali

- Arun Thiruvengadam

- Pritam Baruah

- Dipika Jain

A mail has been sent announcing that Sreejith has been given additional charge as Dean of of Strategy. So the people predicting Dipika as successor are wrong. I think Sreejith is clearly being groomed as a successor if Raj retires (though that will probably be 20 years away). I think it's the right decision, as Sreejith has a pleasant personality and is liked by students. Plus, he has a doctorate as well.

I just hope the race for a successor does result in an internal power struggle within the faculty.

The comments against Prof Dipika Jain reek of misogyny and patriarchy. If I mention any male professor with a great list of publications, a Harvard degree, global recognition and administrative experience, people will instantly clamour for him to be VC. Just look at all the hype on LI about Sidharth Chauhan, Anoop Surendranath, Gautam Bhatia etc. But the moment it's a female people have a problem. I think the real problem people have is that Prof Dipika is a female, works on transgender issues, is an unabashed feminist and has very strict policies on coming late to class. For entitled males, that's a big problem. We have also seen many mean comments on LI against female VCs like Prof Poonam Saxena and Prof VS Elizabeth. It's just a patriarchal mindset which does not like to see women in positions of authority.

If NLSIU allows such a flawed exam to take place, then it should pay for its mistakes, that's how law and equity work. Why should the aspirants pay for Sudhir's mistakes? Whether NLSIU asks Sudhir to compensate it for his mistake or not, that's an internal matter. Similarly, what 'real things' are necessary to give in a virtual convo? If the university can't print a degree for students on its own, then it should shut down. He's greedy and not held accountable for his actions. If he wants to leave CLAT, who is stopping him exactly? Did he leave this year?

There is ZERO proof that any boat fee went into Sudhir’s pocket. It’s lebellus to argue he’s defrauding people when that’s not true.

You might not agree with why he went down the boat road - but he faces a do or die situation in that pandemic year , his was the only institution to at would be financially impacted by not admitting students , and the clay consortium had postponed clat some three to four times. It’s ridiculous. If he hadn’t gone his own way- those guys don’t care they wouldn’t have done clat that year at all.

I honestly think nls should just have it’s own exam and pull out of clat - it’s a silly stupid exam that’s badly done.

He lost in the SC on procedure- so okay they refunded the money- not all of it but some of it. The money they didn’t refund - went to paying examiners and contractors and test centres. Who do you propose should pay them ? Should they starve because of a Supreme Court order ? If you want Sudhir to pay them personally for something he did as head of an institution - which was in the best interest of the institution - I’d have to think you just want him to suffer because you’ve developed some parasocial relationship.

The logic for the virtual convo was the same thing- stuff was paid out for a real convocation - and the institution needed the money to survive. Y’all don’t realise how fragile nls’s finances were when he took over. And he works for the university - not for you.

If you’re gonna accuse him of corruption - which LI wouldn’t allow if they had any integrity, they only allow these allegations against one person. Then the onus is on YOU to prove that he saw one red cent of any of that money.

He hasnt kept any money! Jindal increases Rajs salary based on how much money he brings in. Sudhir has never been paid for charging fees. Do you even know what the fees was at APU? Do some research. Hes made financial decisions that to any adult seems fair and seems like its in the best interest of the university. Thats his job.

APU still charged a lot and Sudhir has now increased NLS fees considerably too after he's taken charge. He's all about money. He kept half of NLAT money that was solely his fault. Charged students for virtually convo held during the pandemic. Anyone who claims otherwise is deluded.

APU is a not for profit university- its verryy different than jindal. When he was there a bulk of his students were on full scholarships and the fees for the rest was much lower than any comparable private uni. Sudhir is all about the work. He couldve stayed in delhi long before this when he was on the Kasturirangan commitee or the prime ministers commitee on infrastructure. Hes based out of bangalore because he wants to be. He doesnt like babu culture and his parents and whole life is here.Sudhir isnt very good at this networking stuff like raj- his temperament is different. He will not go to jindal. I personally think his plan for after nls is to go to oxford/columbia types for a couple of years and then come back and continue CLPR work.

Jindal can't get anyone better than Prof Raj Kumar.

Remember Raj is not just a Vice Chancellor. He is the founder of the University (of course Mr. Jindal paid the money but the idea to execution, all done meticulously by Raj.

Nobody mentioned above can even remotely match the personality, passion or hardwork of Prof. Raj Kumar.

Raj is absolutely young and full of energy. Not even hit 50. Next 10 years he must remain JGU VC.

No, I feel that Dipika will be preferred over Sahni and Sreejith because her second LLM is from Harvard. Sahni has no foreign degree and is not even an academic, while Sreejith's foreign degree is from Finland or some such place. JGLS wants someone with an Oxbridge/Harvard degree, to show off to parents and law aspirants. Dipika's first LLM is from Dalhousie University in Canada, which may not have made the cut as far VC-ship is concerned, but her second LLM from Harvard puts her ahead of these two, even if she doesn't have a PhD.

Mos importantly of all, Dipika is an entrenched part of the establishment since inception. No has has taught at JGLS for longer than she has. She joined as founding faculty.

So she is my bet for being the next VC.

Oh, please! Then why did Sudhir join a private university run by Azim Premji? He should have stayed back at NUJS! I think Sudhir will leave overnight if Navin Jindal offers him the job, as the salary is much higher than what he currently gets. Also, Raj lives in Delhi, which allows him to network with VIPs. Sudhir would love to do the same.

They spend a lot of time filtering the entry of both students and faculty into that institution. Nor are there public institutions which offer cheaper but equally good quality management education. IIMs also cost a lot. On the other hand, JGLS doesn't offer anything better in terms of education compared to the NLUs where fees is a lot lower in comparison.

Raj is merely a pawn. Naveen Jindal is the guy who runs the show with Sahni as his right hand man. Naveen sees Jindal as a profit-making business rather than a university. Sahni runs the place with HR policies like he ran JSPL's HR wing. Therein lies the problem. Raj has actually done a good job navigating these pressures. I don't think other people can manage to do the same.

This is also the difference with Ashoka. The Chancellor at Ashoka is a serious academic, whereas the Chancellor at Jindal is Naveen Jindal. Also, Ashoka funders don't interfere and demand profits on their investments. They are proper philanthropists.

What Raj banks on is the fact that it’s very hard to get into the top 10 NLUs, with very few merit seats on offer. On top of that you now have an EWS quota. This is where JGLS is virtually the only option for many bright upper middle class students who didn’t get into a top 10 NLU, because they don’t want to go to an NLU Patna or an Amity. But the problem with expanding batches is that many bad students also make it.

Since when does Jindal have good placement? Last I checked, they have rarely placed more than 10% of their batch in any year. As for good faculty, a lot of tall talks, but if you can't produce good students, then how are you considered a good teacher? Not that they have set the legal research domain on fire either, despite having all that fund and other advantages compared to the public universities.

Doesn't the regulations of the University stipulate a tenure limit for the Vice-Chancellor? JGLS was set up through the First Statutes and the First Ordinances, drawing power from the Private Universities Act of Haryana. This is what I remember from my time there, and I wonder if any of these have stipulated limits.

The other schools do have a sizable number of students, who also pay a significant amount of fees that are sufficient to fund those. The entire JGLS model rests upon admitting huge number of students to fund the high salary and perks paid to faculty and do the activities to sustain the PR (pay huge amounts to marquee guest lecturers for example). The problem is that there have never than those many good students (who can afford the fees) or teachers (who can justify such salary) ever in the country, hence beyond a point the model was doomed to stagnate, be it under Raj or someone else.

Total respect to Raj for what he has done: QS ranking, tie-ups with top universities, good recruitments, good faculty, good infra etc. But is it time for him to move on? He has taken some questionable decisions in recent years, such as:

a) Expanding student numbers like crazy, taking many mediocre students and putting pressure on recruitments.

b) Expanding faculty because of that, many of whom are not great.

c) Setting up loss-making schools one after the other. Needlessly competing with Ashoka, JNU, TISS and various B-schools, policy schools, journalism schools and architecture schools, instead of just focusing on competing with NLUs.

d) As a result of c, making JGLS (the only profit-making school) fund the costs of the same.

Raj has been VC since 2009: 14 years is a long time. Maybe it's time for a change? Shouldn't all VCs have a shelf life? How long does he intend to go on for? 20 years?

There are plenty of things Raj can do if he leaves. For example, the Congress can make him education minister in Tamil Nadu. He can implement lots of good ideas there. Or he can join Jio University and do even bigger things there, using Mukesh Ambani's coffers.

P.S. This is for JGLS students and alumni only. Requesting others not to butt in, troll or fake being a JGLS student/alum.