Law Schools

Exclusive: NLUO Cuttack did away with its recently launched LLM-and-PhD integrated-degree offering, before the two students who enrolled in it could be awarded the qualification. The students, who enrolled in September 2011 and had completed only one semester of the course, were transferred to the two year LLM degree instead.

Exclusive: Three weeks after what was presumed to be the suicide of NUJS Kolkata final year student Wasim Iqbal, a psychotherapist is now set to begin serving as counsellor at the law school after notification on Tuesday.

OPEN Magazine investigates the alleged cover up in the tragic early-August death of RMLNLU Lucknow student Satnam Singh Mann, where six have been arrested with two, including a policeman, charged with murder. OPEN excerpts:

“This is nothing but an effort to save the real culprits of the murder of Satnam Singh.” …

“The complaint lodged by the ashram authorities was very serious,” says Circle Inspector Radhakrishnappillai, who had arrested Satnam, “There was a similar attack on Amma two months earlier during her trip to the US. That assailant was also a Bihari. They suspected some connection with that incident.” And then he lets the coin drop. He reveals the real source of police anxiety: “This person had a beard, he was chanting, ‘Bismillah ar-rehmaan ar-raheem.’ How could I be sure he was not a terrorist?”

Satnam, a Brahmin by birth, had ironically been a victim of Islamophobia…

It was not the first mysterious death with links to the Amritanandamayi muth…

Whether that will serve the cause of justice, however, is far from clear. Satnam’s relatives and friends are doubtful. Says Vimal, “We believe the actual culprits are hiding behind a curtain.” Given the rot in the system, many fear it will stay that way.

[from OPEN magazine via @islandexpress]

NLU Jodhpur second year student Vatsal Vasudev wins a place among the top three out of 230 entries from colleges across 70 countries that participated in a speech writing contest. The contest was organised by the United Nations Academic Impact in association with Brookings Institution. The challenge was to write a speech for the UN secretary general.

“The message is clear: no country is completely immune from the consequences of ills prevalent in other countries. In such a scenario, we must realize that not just for the sake of upholding human values, but also for the maintenance of socio-economic equilibrium in the world do we need to begin thinking of the earth as a composite whole,” he wrote.

Vasudev won a trip to New York to meet the UN secretary general and the leadership of the Brookings institution.

“I will make the U.N. chief aware of the problems existing around me,” he says of his plans of the trip adding that he would also seek suggestions and approval for a journalism-activism campaign that he envisions with a couple of friends from college. [The Hindu][Speech]

The tenth Nalsar Hyderabad BALLB convocation saw female students bag 33 out of 36 gold medals, including eight each by toppers Sonakshi Sawhney and Chand Chopra [The Hindu]

RMLNLU Lucknow fourth-year students decided not to submit their complaint application against the university to Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav. In the application, the students had complained about poor quality placements, administration and faculty in the university to Yadav. In an informal meeting with him yesterday, the batch’s representatives agreed to attempt resolving the matter internally with the university’s vice chancellor (VC).

The students met RMLNLU VC professor Balraj Chauhan today, and had a three-hour long discussion with him in which, according to authoritative sources on campus, all pressing issues including retention of good faculty, placements and “everything the students really wanted to talk about” were touched.

The next meeting of the students with the VC is scheduled for 6 September.

RMLNLU Lucknow students wrote to Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav yesterday, complaining about poor placements of the batches graduating in years 2011 and 2012, generally poor campus placement efforts, lackadaisical administration, a lack of professionalism of the university’s assistant registrar, degradation in faculty quality, and no redressal of student grievances.

The students requested Yadav, who is also the university’s chancellor, to set up a student body to which the faculty and the university administration would be accountable for satisfactorily addressing student grievances.

The complaining students noted in the application that decisions directly affecting the students, such as those relating to the mess fee and internet access, were taken in a non-transparent manner without student vote.

Grievances against the assistant registrar included lack of action taken to solve problems related to internet connectivity despite repeated complaints, maintaining heavily anomalous records of repeat examinations’ marks, and failure to enforce security measures to check illegal entry and stay of graduated or suspended students in the university campus and hostels.

RMLNLU vice chancellor professor Balraj Chauhan told Legally India that he was holding a meeting with the students who had signed the application later today.

He said: “See the statements of our university and compare them with other universities. There are problems, the internet supply comes from BSNL, there are local faults, we need more teachers, I am short-staffed. “The university is run by the chancellor and the government, it is a government-funded university. You see, there are certain issues related to payment. Some things are partially true, partially wrong. Everything they expect from me and I must provide those facilities, but it is also in the hands of the government service providers,” he added. [Application]

80 Indian law teachers from 32 Indian and three foreign universities addressed a petition to the Bar Council of India (BCI) yesterday, urging the regulator to “consult more meaningfully” with legal academics while framing policies related to legal education.

NUJS Kolkata’s administration implied that the death of Wasim Iqbal, an NUJS fourth-year student who fell from the terrace of the hostel last week (13 August), was not a suicide, contrary to “unsubstantiated and factually incorrect news reports”.

GLC Mumbai student Nivedita Nathani was hit and killed by a car on Thursday night, when crossing the road on her customary after-dinner walk near the NCPA arts centre at around 11pm.

The 19-year-old driver took Nathani to hospital where she died of head injuries. The driver was arrested for culpable homicide and rash and negligent driving, but was later released on bail. He was not intoxicated according to reports [via Indian Express / TOI]

NUJS Kolkata student Wasim Iqbal died last night in what is presumed to have been a suicide triggered in part by exam pressures. The college claimed it had appointed a counsellor for students two weeks ago.

One of the few things that get law student readers on Legally India as excited as reading about jobs are the league tables of colleges drawn up by publications every year. But do they do so needlessly, asks Kian Ganz.

Exclusive: CNLU Patna’s second batch of 80 students found twenty-five jobs in its 2011-12 campus placement, with legal process outsourcing (LPO) companies and the All India Reporter (AIR) accounting for 80 per cent of jobs.

Exclusive: NUJS Kolkata assistant professor Dr. Prabhash Ranjan has joined NLU Jodhpur as associate professor, after a disagreement with the college administration about seniority and increments, as NUJS faculty member and Nalsar and LSE graduate Chinmayi Arun will join NLU Delhi.

RMLNLU Lucknow’s 2012 graduating class of 154 this year secured 25 jobs, with most going to legal process outsourcing (LPO) companies and eight law firms that were first-time recruiters.

Previous years’ coverage of various national magazines’ law school rankings has turned into a bit of a media circus and has not really contributed in any way to improving the quality or transparency of Indian legal education.

The magazines’ law school rankings have been often criticised and little understood, while colleges’ rank often varied widely and seemingly randomly from year to year. Please feel free to read previous stories, drama and hundreds of comments on this topic.

Legally India has therefore taken an editorial decision not to analyse, publicise or give major editorial space to such magazines’ rankings.