The newest among 25 national law universities (NLU) in India, and Madhya Pradesh’s second NLU, NLU Jabalpur yesterday was given its first director as the high court appointed former RMLNLU Lucknow and NLIU Bhopal vice chancellor (VC) Prof Balraj Chauhan to the post.
The high court also appointed Judicial Training and Research Institute (JTRI) Jabalpur director Sanjeev Kumar as the NLU’s registrar, Chauhan told us.
He said that as per the ordinance establishing NLU Jabalpur, the government intends to start the law school’s first academic session from July 2018 onward. He said that the government has already purchased land for constructing the NLU’s permanent campus but will commence its session for the time being through a temporary campus which is yet to be rented.
Chauhan told us that things like the batch intake or whether Jabalpur will take admissions through the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT), among other administrative decisions will be taken after meetings between him, the registrar and the executive council at the NLU.
As per procedure to appoint any NLU’s first director, Chauhan was nominated and appointed directly by the high court instead of his name being forwarded first as the nomination of a director-search committee.
Chauhan is currently continuing to head Amity University Lucknow as director and will gradually relieve himself from his duties at Amity and expects to join Jabalpur in the next 7-10 days. He had joined Amity University as group director for its Lucknow, Gurgaon, Mumbai and Jaipur campuses in October 2016 after his successive terms as VC first at NLIU and RMLNLU which had ended on 2 January 2013.
He commented: “It is a good challenge for me. The most important thing is that I served as a vice chancellor for more than 9 years, at NLIU and RMLNLU. I held different positions in Lucknow university. I never had any problem with the students and those students are now my strength. They are now high court judges, lawyers, IAS officers, journalists, they are the persons who are advising me. And now I understand how these students from NLUs are slightly different from others as their expectations are different.”
The Madhya Pradesh government had approved the decision to establish an NLU in Jabalpur - where the principal bench of the Madhya Pradesh high court is - as recently as in March this year.
Chauhan was also part of the search committee responsible for nominating Prof SS Singh’s successor at NLIU Bhopal who was to also be appointed as NLIU’s new director yesterday, simultaneously with Chauhan’s appointment at Jabalpur. However, the appointment at NLIU has currently been stayed due to student opposition.
Chauhan declined to comment on the controversy at NLIU.
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p.s. Kian, terrible editing on the piece. Multiple typos. He was a VC at the NLUs for 9 hours? There expectations? At least proofread properly before publishing, no?
The focus is solely on high promises & cutting ribbons!
You have highlighted the shortcomings ... but then our (my) own Maharashtra state is 'running' ahead with multiple NLUs! Then we have AP state, where instead of focusing on current law school in Vizag, the CM is keen on new NLU ... so the disease is widespread :(
1) Institution of National Importance status for all NLUs, with central government funding.
2) But only one NLU per state, like IIT and IIM.
3)Just like IIT and IIM, rename all NLUs with the unifying term "NLU" instead of NLSIU, NALSAR, NUJS, NLIU, RGNUL etc. Currently, only NLU Jodhpur and Delhi use the correct terms.
4) The law schools in Nagpur, Aurangabad and Jabalpur should be renamed as State Law Universities, like Karnataka State Law University. These law schools can be renamed after Rajiv Gandhi, Lohia etc but not the NLUs.
1. Professors Madhava Menon, MP Singh, Mohan Gopal.
2. Lawyer-cum-MPs from the Congress
3. The MP who introduced the NLU Bill (Sugata Bose)
4. Various Senior Advocates
5. Retired judges
There was a time when you used to interview such people, but now you seem to have stopped.
2. There is lot of money in legal industry,
3. There is need for more better legal education institutes in the country (Out of 1000+ law schools, only 25ish are good enough)
4. An NLU in being competent, despite possible problems in first year always ends up considered a 'good education institution'
5.Law schools are also gateways to get into finance, public services, journalism etc.
6. Usually, top law schools of the world have 1K+ students in each batch.
7. This VC and registrar are very promising.
Ergo,
Great move Madhya Pradesh. Go do something for education in your state!
I don't mind if NLIU opened up the gate for 1K+ UG students every year. That will do two things, decrease the cost of education and increase accessibility.
But the students and alumni are not likely to welcome the move because of multiple stereotypes in the education system. Also, possibly because no administration is equipped to handle students in such quantity. So my concern of accessibility exists in cases where there are not more NLUs (schools of law with decent funding, and attractive to faculties).
Honestly, an NLU is not an INSTITUTE OF NATIONAL IMPORTANCE as of now, it is so said for the few elitist jerks who think of it as a TAG to criticise the move to make it one state one NLU. I don't believe that a state won't welcome MULTIPLE IIMs and IITs if it was possible. The number of Islands of Excellence must increase because we have a lot of quality coming in from our already established National, Public and Private law schools who are equipped to fill this gap.
Accessibilty, increase of overall quality of legal profession wil be helped. And it all comes by sharing a tag of National Law University. Which honestly is fine by me.
www.legallyindia.com/lawschools/after-rmlnlu-death-allahabad-hc-condemns-admin-for-never-ending-trial-of-late-student-20121221-3335#liprefbox
The 7th point of promising VC wont be there in your commnet then
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