NUJS Kolkata’s chancellor, the Chief Justice of India (CJI) TS Thakur, has signed off on a resolution to institute a judicial review commission at the university, according to campus sources with knowledge of the development.
Thakur attended the NUJS’ convocation on Sunday (13 November) and chaired the general council meeting as ex-officio chancellor on Saturday (12 November), at which oral and written representations were made by the Student Juridical Association (SJA) on falling academic standards and other issues that the student body has long raised.
While the resolution has cleared the way for a review commission headed by a judicial member, no members have yet been formally appointed by the CJI.
On 23 September 2016, one day before the controversial renewal of NUJS vice chancellor Ishwara Bhat’s term for five years, the SJA had passed a resolution signed by an large majority of students, expressing its “deep dissatisfaction” with Bhat’s tenure, the declining standards in faculty quality, lack of transparency, and other issues (read the full resolution here).
However, Bhat’s term was renewed by the executive committee, as a state government’s proposal to open two new rural branches of NUJS and to double batch sizes was also discussed after having been slipped into the meeting’s agenda at the last minute.
The institution of a much overdue review commission had been a long-standing demand from students and alumni, with a petition from January 2014, signed by 453, seeking the “urgent intervention” of the CJI in NUJS to:
appoint a Review Commission under section 14 of the WBNUJS Act, 1999.
The Review Commission contemplated under the WBNUJS Act states that such a commission should be set up after every five years by the Chancellor. ,,To the best of our knowledge, no such Review Commission was set up in the more than fourteen years of NUJS’ existence.
We have reached out to Bhat and the SJA for comment.
The power of reports (and the lack thereof)
Historically, review commissions can be powerful tools in bringing transparency and accountability to national law schools to usher in reform and debate. The 2011 report on Nalsar Hyderabad was so explosive that it had been covered up and hidden by the administration for nearly four months, with its publication eventually followed by the resignation of its vice chancellor Veer Singh.
However, they can also be a damp squib. For instance, in 2009 the report on NLSIU Bangalore by Justice KT Thomas catalogued a “drastic decline in discipline and academic standards”, but mostly focused superficially on students’ conduct and several other issues.
And the 2014 GNLU Gandhinagar full report had never been publicly released and saw significant delays, after one member of the commission did not complete his findings, despite a highly critical first draft of the report by Madhava Menon and director Bimal Patel’s re-appointment depending on the conclusions of the report.
What is wrong at NUJS?
While NUJS had made national headlines just before Bhat's extension about a widely panned draft of internal service rules, which were written by an ex-judge for Rs 75,000 but found to be plagiarised, and slammed by faculty as draconian and blatantly illegal, the complaints go back longer and run deeper than that.
The SJA had produced a 20-page report running to 200 pages with annexures, noting a series of complaints and problems about Bhat’s administration and running of the university, including:
- Unexplainable delay in the constitution of a university review commission, which is overdue under the university’s charter
- Not implementing basic transparency norms in university body meetings
- NUJS annual reports suggest limited academic and research output between 2011 and 2015 – Bhat’s term
- Neither has the quality of faculty at NUJS been revived, nor has the mass exodus of faculty been remedied, despite the recruitment drive of 2014, resolved students
- Undue delay in implementing executive council resolutions for creation of a moot court fund and soliciting sponsorship funds for NUJS students, creation of a Right to Information cell and records section, complying with the Bar Council of India’s report that contained suggestions to remedy serious administrative lapses at NUJS
- Undue and unjustified delay of three years in formulating and notifying a sexual harassment policy and grievance redressal mechanism for students
- Not implementing several crucial academic reforms that were even approved by NUJS faculty several months ago
- Consistent inaction on repairing NUJS’ ageing internet infrastructure
- Continuing with the allegedly illegal interior decoration contract an expensive inquiry into which led to the dismissal of NUJS registrar Surajit Mukhhopadhyay for allegedly causing financial loss to NUJS through the contract
- The lack of action against university officers allegedly involved in financial embezzlement of NUJS funds
- NUJS having not yet claimed the UGC’s financial grant of Rs 7.37 crore to it despite consistently facing a financial crunch that has resulted in frequent substantial hike in student fee in the last three years
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1. Strategy to recruit good faculty, especially BALLB alumni of NLUs (not LLM alumni!!)
2. An effort should be made to reach out to alumni of NUJS and other NLUs to teach short courses. If an LLM is insisted upon, that's not really a problem. There are tons of NLU alumni with LLMs working at law firms, and some people are even teaching (at Jindal, NLUD etc).
3. Infrastructure upgrade
4. Website design to be outsourced to a professional agency and students to be made stockholders
5. Sack those involved in corruption.
6. Inquiry into legality of Bhat's extension without advertisement for applications for other candidates.
7. Accountability of poor teachers. Some teachers are absolutely incompetent. It is arguably ILLEGAL to "teach" by playing pre-recorded PPT slides and scamming the publications system by opening C-grade journals and writing Z-grade book reviews for them.
after all these years?
Seriously?
Please tell me friends, which university in India do not have problem with infrastructure or faculty. Also, NUJS faculty is very good. Good faculty does not mean foreign degree and fancy English speaking, or how many publications. It means performance in class as evidenced by placements. Please also remember that it is graduate from traditional law college in Karnataka, Andhra, Kerala etc who have established the National Law Schools. Good infrastructure does not mean five-star hotel. If you want such culture then go to to Global Jindals College where fee is 1 crore a year and culture is of moneyed class . Please remember that NUJS is providing top class placements and faculty for reasonable prince. Please also remember that NUJS has retired Chief Justice of India as faculty. Which college can claim that? I am sure that Hon'ble Justice Kabir will reveal the true facts if he is asked.
If you can say slanders then I will say genuine and true things to Commission. I will tell that hike fee to 1 crore a year for spoilt student, who are not even happy with faculty like former Chief Justice of India and want five-star hotel as a campus.
Sir I replied to you last time also. You wrote the same comment last time too.
Starting with unwarranted interference - the representation was granted by the Executive Council so unless you think that the Executive Council does not have the power to grant such representation or you do not respect their decision, I do not really get how is it unwarranted.
You are right in saying that the students are frustrated and that is because of the VCs administration only.
And thank you for the compliment. We all are proud of our dancing skills and some of our drinking capacity too. As is it not self-contradictory to say that the students are zeros in studies and then are getting amazing placements.
Also the fees for the Global 'Jindals' College is around 7 lakh INR per year.
Please provide the definition of 'moneyed class' and also 'spoilt student'. And please talk about 5 star hostels after not forcing 3 students to live in double occupancy rooms in the first year.
Rest assured everyone will have the opportunity to tell their truth to the Commission and let us see the version of truth they believe.
All the best.
however, the academic performance of nujs is bad bcoz of mediocre student quality...
Please try and reflect honestly. Do you study regularly? Do you do projects honestly? Or do you do everything at last moment, get poor grades and blame faculty?
NUJS has faculty from NLUs, Oxford, LSE, Michigan, a Chevening scholar and a former CJI. Please remember that
I welcome you to compare with NLSIU, NALSAR, NLUD, NLIU, NLUJ, GNLU, HNLU, RMNLU, Symbiosis, Amity and JGLS in honest way. Who has better faculty?
You can do point to point comparison: NUJS faculties have studied in prestigious colleges in India and foreign country, VC is prestigious Fulbright scholar, CJI is a faculty, publications by faculties are many. So what will students say to judicial commission? Can you explain me?
Ok I accept one issue in infrastructure but that is fault of state government.
So overall I think NUJS is doing very well and improving under the leadership of the present VC.
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