NALSAR does not have nirf ranking so they can't offer.

Is the RGNUL diploma course with mylegalstudio.com valid? That is also an online course. Please clarify Kian. Why did you leave out Patiala?

Please dont publish the previous comment.
The problem for law schools is this clause-should be in the Top-100 in overall category in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) for at least two years during the previous three years

NIRF started in 2016 and its only in 2018 that Law as a category was added so till next ranking no law school can offer online diploma. Only after next year ranking is out and a college is there in both the ranking then only they can undertake to do offer.
Please dont publish my previous comment, there was little error in it,.

The SJA could figure out months ago that such a notification was on its way. that is some amazing amount of foresight

How can you say these courses were sham? Did you miss the para above that the regulation is a new one? At least read the whole thing.

Oh yeah? Please tell me more about how iPleaders misled anyone Mr. Propaganda? Why didn't the university so far make it's stand clear? I bet the VC or registrar didn't even know about this regulation until they saw it on legallyindia!

What is stopping either SJA or the university from making a statement? Is it the fear that your illegal actions will get exposed?

The university is facing a huge compensation bill, plus refund of almost 3 Cr. There is still some time, wake up and sort it out, or the students will be footing the bill for the stupidity of the last SJA president and the current VC.

You are an idiot if you think that's what happened. Either that or you are one of those who think the university is thriving now because of the fall-out of everything that's happened over the last few months. In that case, you are an idiot who's also blind. What has happened is that almost every person of repute is right now hesitant to associate herself with this university. Which is evident from the fact that it currently has literally zero permanent person in the administrative decision-making posts. Plus, most of the few good faculty we have are also seeking opportunities to leave and there is absolutely no plan in place to attract quality people from outside even in the days to come(and even if there was, no alumnus at least will want anytime soon to come back and teach here).

@SCK: Name any reputed academic who has displayed even a modicum of interest to have anything to do with this place in the past 5 months. Upendra Baxi was supposed to join as the Ford Foundation Human Rights Chairperson six months back. That's not happening anymore for sure. Isn't the fact that you can't get any capable person to actually show interest in becoming VC or Registrar evidence enough? Also, please name a single teacher having any academic reputation outside NUJS having joined the place in the past 5 years. And the last time an outsider has been made Professor was back in 2008-09. Evidence speaks for itself.

What nonsense. This rule was introduced only on 4th July. Please don't says nonsense without checking. This does not apply to previous batches. SJA had no clue, so don't act wise now.

It seldom feels like students are here to study anymore. At least, majority of them seem perfectly content to just get the degree and good grades regardless of the quality of teaching. That's why the incompetent teachers who accede to every student demand and showers them with undeserved grades, are never complained against, even when they don't take classes, whereas those are competent and refuse to compromise with standard are plotted against, ridiculed and insulted in myriad ways.

The SJA will not be able to do anything about any of this. In hindsight the earlier round of protests had little to do with improving anything and much to do with furthering the interests of a bunch of the worst professors at NUJS. these guys bribed us easy grades and supported all kind of indiscipline, which in turn lead to them being quite popular. it was quite easy for them to use that popularity to manipulate us into doing all of this. Most of the students have now gotten used to being passed and getting good grades without effort and they dislike any professor who attempts to enforce some standards. there won't be enough student support for any protest against any of these incompetent people. we will mock at them in private but happily accept what they doll out. Most of the good faculty whom i spoke to are packing their bags as they feel insulted. the university will be run over by these people who do not teach, who will not do any meaningful research and will continue to corrupt the students. Bhat also has to take some blame for this - he should have kicked out these incompetent people long back and he never did that.

Bang on. The present SJA top brass must either act ASAP or resign.

@Hardcore Champion and NUJS Alumnus: While I certainly pointed out some problems the current SJA is facing in reality, I didn't make any stupid insinuation that the office bearers should resign or something like that. As NUJS Alumnus has pointed out, it's unfair to expect them to make up for the negligence of Admin duties. However, they should realise that under the current situation, unless they try to improve things, nobody else will. And while that is because people in authority seem to have their own agendas, the bad impact both long-term and short-term, will have to be faced by the students only, not the authority.

Complete nonsense. From ipleaders courses alone university got more than a crore. That's 30% - 40% revenue share. Other distance courses are loss making. So the total comes to 90 lakhs. Basically, courses with 100% revenue share :P loses money from nujs exchequer. That's why doing 3rd party courses made sense. Nujs never managed to launch a distance course on its own that can earn even 10 lakhs. And now, good luck. UGC has shut down that Avenue.

Nujs annual budget is about 7 cr. Stop making up numbers. There is no 16cr fee receipt from students. Anyone who can do basic maths can calculate that approx 550 students paying 1.5 lakh (deduct hostel costs, mess fees etc from fee) can't be 16 Cr.

@Kalia9: I agree with what you said, with a small correction. The total number would be around 650-ish, including LLMs. More if you count PhD students. Still falls far short of the 16 crores though.

LLM and PhD students pay next to nothing

That's actually not true. The current LLM annual fee is around Rs. 135000 and the current PhD annual fee is around Rs. 50000. Compared to LLB fees, these are less, but still substantial. The university earns a good 80-90 lakhs each year from these sources at the least.

Advocate 1: Are you talking about the same Annual Reports that copy-paste previous years' moot court achievements and other things 'by mistake' and randomly assign money received for purpose X to purpose Y? I would take any information contained in them with several big pinches of salt, especially financial ones, given how it's no secret that in the entire Accounts Department of NUJS, there is apparently only one individual having actual knowledge of accounting, according to insiders.

Do you have a shred a evidence to prove your allegation of faculty being a partner in the third party vendor businesses? If so, produce it, or else, stop spreading lies.

Kian, that's not at all what was hinted at and you know it. By the very nature of things, every course will have to have its faculty coordinator. That's how the system works. That's like saying the VC of NUJS is a partner with NUJS. The faculty member doesn't choose to become coordinator, it's an administrative appointment anyway and can be changed anytime the administration chooses to. In fact, several of the courses has seen such changes over the years.

For that matter, each course that NUJS offers completely internally, without any third party involvement, also has a designated faculty coordinator. In fact, I don't think I've seen any course being offered by any university through distance mode anywhere across the world that doesn't have any designated coordinator from within the institution. How is that irregular?

That's really stretching ones imagination. And the meaning of a word. That has got to be the world record. Bravo Kian. Who knew your imagination could go this far.

The message from Legally India over the past few months has been really clear. What we can't publish as report because we will get slapped with multiple defamation suits, we will allow to seep in as anonymous comments. Kian keeps stretching his imagination to come out in support of these comments and selectively uses his censorship policy these days. And then he wonders why his credibility has been shrinking among law schools and certain firms with the passage of every year.

Get some knowledge on law, Kian. By editorial comments, are you taking responsibility for what the commentator meant? Or is that your interpretation of what he/she might have meant? Given how the comment is an anonymous one, I don't see how you can do the former.

As for 'honestly-held' student perception, give me a break. If a law student isn't aware of the difference between saying a faculty may be defending a course because that person gets money (from the university, mind) for coordinating it and saying a faculty has an interest in the private party firm that's running the course, then that is no bona fide mistake, but a negligent and highly mala fide allegation. Kindly get some legal opinion on that matter of you so wish. I highly doubt anybody who actually knows the law will differ. The fact remains that despite having been clearly told how that comment is a blatant lie, you have taken personal responsibility for the same by not only keeping it there, but also by trying to defend it but saying what it 'might have meant' in your opinion.

If some students have a wrong notion which is parently false and scandalous, you will allow that to be aired without taking any responsibility through anonymous comments? Is that what you do as a journalist? Or find out the truth and clarify?

No, it doesn't. You have zero idea about how UGC Rules work. Ask NLSIU, who had run their distance programme for over a decade despite not having UGC recognition.

There was absolutely no UGC bar on these courses. These are figment of your imagination. The rule was just made on July 4th, till then it was absolutely legal to offer the online courses nujs offered. If you are denying that kindly put up the source, please cite the relevant regulation. Otherwise eat shit and shut up.

If the faculty actually did something and wrote letters to the higher authorities instead of typing comments on Legally India, may be something good can come out of my alma mater.

I've been told by some of my former teachers and current students themselves that apparently all that some of the NUJS faculty do is bitch about each other on this forum.

It's just disappointing that this is the current mentality of faculty at NUJS these days. I miss the good old Shamnad sir days.

There are just too many factions and infighting among the faculty right now to present any united front. Moreover, most of them do not have the long-term interest of the university or students in their mind anyway and all they are bothered about is engaging in petty struggle. The days of M.P. Singh and Shamnad, Prabhash and the like are long gone. However, same holds for students too. There's just no getting back that quality. But even there, the institute and the system are more to be blamed than the students themselves.

@2014 NUJS: How exactly did your 'insider' sources reveal who is commenting what here? Seems like the clairvoyance part is true indeed, enough to pierce the cloak of anonymity! As a reader, I have seen that whenever someone (even an obvious outsider) comments here critiquing the NUJS Admin/Students, there are immediate clamours of him being a disgruntled faculty. Quite easy to do that and not see one's own faults, I guess. Regarding your nostalgic comments about earlier days, though, I whole-heartedly agree. Those days, as you rightly said, are sorely missed by alumni and faculty(at least the few remaining sane ones) alike.

High Court Staff: Are you saying writing correct English and coherent thoughts is only the prerogative of disgruntled NUJS faculty? You would better get back to the crannies of the High Court with such gems of insight. None of the points I mentioned is incorrect. The Acting Registrar has time and again made it clear during the past two months how she hates this place. If you have not heard it, that's probably because of the six degrees of separation between High Court (where you are purportedly at) and NUJS office (where she's at). If all the contracts were illegal, are you alleging she goes out of the way to support illegality wherever she can? At least get your logic in order first before you start writing. As for earliest disbursement of salary, that's just crap bureaucratic language. I know for a fact that contractual teachers did not get paid for at least 3 months and several researchers even quit because of the delay. So keep your solicitous propaganda to yourself.

But nujs doesn't have any expertise to offer such courses.

Ghanta! Again another baseless rumor. Chances are the current head of North Bengal University's law department is the foremost candidate. Since there's not going to be any EC meeting this month, VC designate can't be announced anyway. So there goes the reliability of your information.

Why? Have the EC members been held responsible and accountable for selecting and extending the tenure of Ishwar Bhat, who's proven to be a blight on the institution? What's stopping the EC from putting up an advertisement and selecting the best possible candidate? The answer is, those idiots just like to arbitrarily exercise their power without giving any thought to what would benefit the university.

Dear Admin's Pet:
If the current admin and those shameless faculty members who are sucking up to them, keep dragging the good name of the university through mud by their inane actions and decisions, then the criticism will also have to be in public. Especially since internal complaints made to admin about its own irregularities have been meeting with stony silence for the last few months. Admin including the interim VC, interim Registrar and other faculty in influential positions have not done a single thing to improve any affair within the institution. On the contrary, they have been proven to be indecisive and thoroughly incapable of taking any long term or short term positive steps, including ignoring all review commission recommendations, even the ones approved by the EC, letting go of faculty members in the middle of the semester, not recruiting new faculty, delaying on contractual payments, delaying on payment of bills, delaying on providing tax documents, allowing every single student application for repeat and special repeat examinations to keep students under control, and even seeking justification for getting new books for the library! You (and the admin) thoroughly lack the right to tell the students or the alumni what limits should be imposed on their protest, seeing as how you only use regulations to suit your selfish interest and ignore them when they don't. Now, go away and give yourself a few days of additional holidays. The new VC is great at giving random vacations and taking away vacations at random too.

Is removing the acting registrar part of these new measures? Because a little bird told me she has resigned and left in a huff today. Right after some heated exchange with the VC. Some administration!

The new VC has got a nice cushy post. For him NUJS is post retirement benefits. He is just screwing up the place.

Just look at this comment and you will know what kind of people run NUJS admin. Shame on SJA for allowing such people to take control of the University.

Funnily enough, the SJA is now completely silent without even the squeak of a protest. Every bad thing that had been happening under Bhat is still going on exactly the same. If anything, some of the regular things that used to happen like exchange programmes, multiple credit courses, etc. have come to a stop. This makes one wonder, did the SJA simply play into the hands of those who wanted Bhat out or did they actually want to bring progressive changes within the university? From the looks of it, it's merely the first one.

even the search committee is not in place and you can divine that someone will be appointed as the VC? Is this like the SJA knowing fourth months in advance what the UGC is up to?

Has NUJS moved on from teaching law to astrology?

SJA is not going to do any of that. Majority students are quite happy with attendance requirements being relaxed and special repeat examinations being arranged for by the new administration, along with chastising those few rare faculty members who try to maintain some standard of evaluation still by just not awarding every student pass marks simply for appearing in the examinations. Plus multiple classes not being held at all as usual. You will not find a single complaint being made by students in that ground throughout the year. This is not the admin NUJS students need, but it is certainly one they deserve at present.

So long as the VC keeps promoting the students regardless of quality, he will always have student support. He's figured that out within a very short period. Especially by those who would rather take advantage of the turmoil and get their degrees rather than actually work for it. As someone mentioned earlier, truly the administration that students here deserve. Protesting against illegal repeat examination is now considered 'playing politics' or 'screwing with students'. The new culture is being made quite obvious. By the time the students realise what long term harm this is doing to the institution, it will be too late. The current general mentality among students is, no matter what I do, passing out of here in 5 years is my inherent right, since I'm paying a truckload of money.

I strongly condemn your Goebbelsian false propaganda. I request LI to delete such stupid comments made by you. The former Hon'ble Justice, lacking much honour or sense so far, has proven to be completely unfit as the head of any academic institution. From which angle he is a 'jurist' sycophants like you only know! I have little personal idea how he was as a judge and apparently even there he had been no great shakes. However, that's beside the point. He has no clue what leading a national law school means and the biggest problem is that he has refused to take any responsibility at all since he has joined, instead saying he's here just for a while and shouldn't have to do any of what is needed to be done. I see you have failed to address every single criticism made so far in the comments above against the administration. Nobody has even started on procedure, though there are several problems there too. It's the results that are the biggest worry at present. Please name some of the vast improvements made so far. As for majority student support, of course he will have it if he refuses to fail any student or allows everyone to sit for multiple exams regardless of attendance or failure. if you are that overawed by his eminence, go and worship him on a daily basis rather than putting him through this. Misgovernance in the recent years there indeed has been, but what's happening now is no governance at all. Arbitration, litigation everything is starting against the university because of the current admin. Research has come to a shuddering stop. Academic standards are plummeting. Half of the classes do not take place. The 'hope' revealed in your last statement actually goes on to show the true intention of you and your ilk. Pushing the institution beyond a point from where it will no longer be able to recover.

eminent jurist!!! ask around lawyers at Calcutta High Court about his credentials and you will get to know what he is eminent at. How about you point out three judgments worth anything that this eminent jurist has written?? or how about one work of scholarship from him to call him a jurist?? Can you list three things that he has vastly improved at the university?

There is nothing eminent about him. There is only imminent complete ruin that he is taking NUJS into.

It is clear that you are an insider and supposedly one of the stooges of the new admin. If you think the students here are so bad, then why don't you leave for places where they will be willing to pay you and your great judge the homage that you both so richly deserve? As for the SJA ex-President's so-called faith in the administration, that happened several months back before you all started showing your true colours and didn't initiate any of the reforms the new admin was supposed to. That person is no longer even a student, so can't be expected to follow up on his words. The ones who are there clearly are considered by you 'disrespectful and misbehaved', whatever that meant. We don't want a VC from Harvard, just one who would put in the hard work that he and you all are being paid for and not keep tarnishing the university's rep.

Ooh, that puts us all in our rightful place! How many government universities in the country charges a fee of 2.5-3 lakhs from students and cannot even provide some of the basic amenities like hygienic and adequate hostel facilty? "Reforms like non-corruption" - what does that even mean? You all taking a new oath of office? Or have you made watching Satyameva Jayate mandatory this Independence Day? You have not even implemented the reforms that the EC has agreed with so far. Bunch of liars! If there is any reform that has been done, there is absolutely no reason why it cannot be shared with everyone. You are just an idiot to say otherwise. Mostly to hide your own inefficiency.

This is just a vague statement. How about stating specifically what has been done for "non-corruption" (as you put it). Dont tell me that there are state secrets involved that it can't be shared in public. There is nothing for you to share (except shame) in public because there is nothing good that has been done. Infact there is plenty of non-sense that has been done. The only two research centres have been shut, the university is being dragged into litigation around the country, academic standards have been thrown out the window and people are leaving the university like its some disaster zone.

Dont try to evade the questions by changing the discussion to resource constrains. Tell us what have you vastly improved (as it was claimed) so far.

Why are the students of online courses being punished? What is their fault? NUJS took their money and now not even giving certificates to those who finished their course!

When exactly have students at NUJS held any organised protest against individual students being disciplined for proven misconduct? If anything, bulk of the students are aggrieved because the university authority lets almost every instance of misconduct slide or drags it in for ever!

Okay, whoever you are, you should know a few things. Let's do this slowly and logically.

1. Simply because SJA writes something or asks for something does not mean it's the general student demand. At least, not for this SJA. The general body had not been shown the demands to suspend the courses before it was made by the SJA. Nor did the students as a whole approve such demand.

2. I don't have anything against the SJA in what they had done about removing the earlier VC. Good job done, actually. However, as the Review Commission too pointed out, SJA cannot be expected to evaluate matters and behave like mature and well-reasoning adults, because at the end of the day, they are still young. This is not meant to be patronizing, it's the simple fact. I will give you an example.

In the entire part of the report that deals with diploma/certificate courses, there are a few glaring errors. One is that the SJA has confused between courses offered by NUJS alone and those offered with other private players. Evidence given against the former category has been used to vilify the latter. I challenge the SJA or anybody from NUJS to cite a single instance of a student of any of the iPleaders courses or the one offered to doctors on medical law complaining about course quality. You will not find any. If the SJA know any such complaint, they have not even mentioned it in the report. The only example they have given is about a student who is made to create material for such courses, which are shoddy and low-paying. Guess what? That's all for courses NUJS offers on its own without private player involvement. In none of the third party courses, student help has been taken to frame material, nor has there been any complaint about their quality. So the entire allegation about the courses being below standard and simply being used to make money falls flat.

Same goes for the allegations that teachers are compelled to teach in these courses, thus compromising their regular classes etc. The fact remains that anyone who is aware of the reality will know that no teacher at NUJS is ever compelled to teach at any of the external courses. They are given an offer. They accept it because they get paid additionally for it, simple. For the online courses (all the iPleaders courses for example), there is not even that classroom teaching requirement. If any class compromise happens at all owing to teacher accepting to teach because of the extra money, it is for only the courses that NUJS offers classroom coaching in. So there goes the second piece of allegation.

The third and final matter is the UGC Rules. I agree that these course are not UGC approved (mostly because NUJS did not seek necessary permission). However, for anyone to say that a statutory university cannot offer a programme that does not have UGC specific approval, when students have specifically been told and taken consent from, is not actually the legal position. SJA (or rather, its ex-President) seems to think it is. The fact that NLSIU continued offering their MBL for over a decade before getting approval for it, says otherwise. Even if we assume for the sake of argument that it is, then all the courses offered by NUJS should also have been stopped, not simply the ones offered with private parties. Even the diplomas offered by NUJS on its own fall within the distance education category, because the classroom teaching does not cover the necessary number of hours for a regular course. However, those courses are still going on and SJA didn't raise any objection against them.

This clearly goes to show that the person who had taken the decision within the SJA to do this clearly lacks information, clarity of thought and legal acumen. At the end of the day, the courses are meant to raise money for the university. Students clearly think their fee burden ought to be reduced, rightly too. However, they have zero alternative to offer and instead, have actually closed down one significant source of revenue. The courses were not harming the students, nor were they 'taking away its reputation', since as I mentioned, not a single complaint was received from any student of the third-party courses about their quality. If anything, the ones NUJS offers on its own are suspect in quality, provide outdated or no material, use unqualified students' labour to make material (admitted by the SJA too). It is clear that the students who raised this (again, not the GB, but some of the ex office-bearers of the SJA) were influenced by internal people from faculty/administration who were jealous or against the third parties or the other faculty members who were coordinating these courses and made this happen.

Finally, the main issue is not whether the courses should go on, but the way the present admin chose to deal with them. NUJS can bring any course offered by it to an end if it wants to. So long as it adheres to the proper procedure. The current admin acted like petulant children. No communication, no hearing, no discussion. The SJA seemed to be worried that continuance of the courses can attract litigation against the university, which is ironical. Because litigation is what is happening because of the admin's behaviour. One should also note that the report itself contains extremely tall and ambitious suggestions as to how the university should move away from UGC requirements (holding its own NET etc.) on the one hand, and how it should stick to the letter of UGC rules on the other. As I said, immature.

This has nothing to do with the issue at hand, but the report seems less written by a democratically elected representative body, and more as an exercise in self-aggrandizement by the ex-President. (This is not to belittle SJA's work, they have indeed done a lot of good things). There has been at least one reference to himself in the first person and apparently, he is the only one who has done everything of note. Throughout the report, there's been mention of either SJA or the ex-president's name. No other office bearer has been named or anything or given any credit. Funny how megalomania tends to reveal itself. It's clear who has drafted the report all by himself.
One should also ask the SJA, all the problems that this report points out during PIB's regimes have been still going on during the last 3 months. Even the ones which could have been very easily rectified. What has been done by the current SJA to ensure otherwise? For that matter, why aren't they asking the EC to hasten appointment of new VC, new Registrar, new Finance Officer, new Accounts Officer, new teachers, new Controller of Examinations, ensuring that the academic reforms are finally implemented, action taken against the corrupt people inside etc.? Or is everything going to be solved magically only by removing PIB (whose removal was a blessing, I fully admit).

The examiner had remarked in essence that the guide who allowed that sort of thesis to be submitted should have his own eligibility as a law teacher looked into. Only, he didn't use language this Parliamentary.