The BCI’s letter dated 5 January and addressed to all registrars and principals of “universities [and] centres of legal education of imparting legal education in the country” was received by colleges today, requesting them to reserve seats for BCI nominees though stopping short of directing law schools to do so.
The letter stated that on 16 December 2012 the BCI’s general body had accepted a 2 December executive committee meeting resolution, stating:
“The Committee considered the proposal of Mr TS Ajith hon’ble member of the council for allotment /reservation of few seats in the law college/law school/law universities of the country for the nominees of the Bar Council of India, in view of the Committee the said proposal is worth consideration and accordingly it is resolved to request the concerned vice chancellors/registrars, principals/deans of the College to make provision for allotment of at least two seats in each course in each and every Universities/Colleges/Law School for the nominees of the Bar Council.”
Ajith, who is the Kerala bar council’s BCI nominee, declined to comment when contacted by Legally India but said that representations could be made to him at the Delhi BCI offices from Saturday and would be considered. He said that the BCI chairman Manan Kumar Mishra would be able to comment on the development, but Mishra was not reachable for comment at the time of going to press.
Law schools were unaware of the reason for the resolution, said one vice chancellor of a national law university who declined to be named, but added that he would oppose the resolution “tooth and nail”.
BCI legal education committee member and former NLSIU Bangalore director NL Mitra said: “The BCI cannot have any reservation like this. That would be an anti-competitive practice and completely unconstitutional. I have not seen it anywhere on the legal education committee’s agenda and I will oppose it. On this issue itself I may resign.”
BCI member and former BCI chairman Ashok Parija commented that the proposal might not be workable because many colleges had their own governing statutes and admissions were decided by the Common Law Admissions Test. “We will do nothing without taking colleges on board,” he added.
Comments
love it!
this is possibly the worst Bar Council ever; first the absolute mess over the bar exam, conducted with the help of "some boys", with no reading material, syllabus changing last minute, and a paper with half the questions asking about section numbers, and now this.
Conspiracy theory: Maybe these people have been appointed to deliberately mess up, so that the HRD minister's argument to bring legal education under the AICTE gets stronger. I can't think of any other explanation.
That happened last month. The BCI has however not responded within the prescribed 30 days and we are going to file an appeal before the end of this month.
Best wishes,
Prachi
A few years back, industry sponsored seats in a University's Law School were abolished for similar reasons.
Further, who would determine the criterion for such nominations? This would in all likelihood be used to bypass the CLAT rankings by the influential.
* in an University's
This is rubbish. I personally know influential people whose children wrote the NLS exam and didn't make it. Kudos to those people, as they accepted the outcome and their children went on to choose and do very well in other careers. These exams also test the aptitude for legal studies, so "back channel" even if that existed would not help such a student as he will just get weeded out in the rigorous NLS system.
as for bci, it continues to entertain.
now u don't need to beat any exam....
u just need to fix for your "JUGAAAD" .
too lazy to revisit IPC, but can they be booked under anything?
The Board members' kids must be reaching admission age or would have a house loan to pay. Stupidity is on a high in the country at the moment!