Law schools

Exclusive: The Bar Council of India (BCI) has again declined to disclose detailed information in respect of its contract with the company running the postponed all-India bar exam, following an appeal to an earlier right to information (RTI) request.

However, the BCI has now reversed its response to the original RTI and claimed that it did in fact solicit tenders from competing service providers - Tata Consultancy Services, Sify and Imaging Solutions - before it awarded the contract to Rainmaker.

Law minister Veerappa Moily said the government had finished a Bill to set up a new National Commission for Higher Legal Education and Research, which would replace the BCI as the regulatory body responsible for legal education, recognition of law colleges and a unified law school curriculum.

NUJS Kolkata has announced the 2011 CLAT (Common Law Admission Test) with radical changes, including distribution through the Indian post office network and the ditching of static general knowledge and legal knowledge questions. Meanwhile, the law school diversity project IDIA has pledged to fund admission fees for all students in need.

Colleagues, students, friends and family are mourning the tragic loss of recent Nalsar Hyderabad graduate and legal campaigner Fatehpal Singh who passed away on Friday following a road accident last week.

Nalsar Hyderabad has proposed a regular full-time course for paralegals to widen the scope of legal education to include non-LLB professionals for imparting functions of mediators, conciliators, negotiators and counsellors.

Exclusive: The Supreme Court today allowed the Bar Council of India’s (BCI) transfer petition clubbing together six high court writ petitions challenging the all India bar examination (AIBE) but declined to hear the exam’s constitutional validity just now citing its postponement to March next year.

The National Law University of Orissa at Cuttack would continue to hold its own law entrance test instead of conducting selection of students on the basis of CLAT (Common Law Entrance Test) said its vice-chancellor to blog CLAT Gyan.

The Bar Council of India (BCI) has published the pro-forma undertaking that 2010 graduates will need sign before practising, agreeing to take and pass the bar exam in future.

The Bar Council of India (BCI) has circulated a resolution to state bar councils to make 2010 graduates give an undertaking to pass the bar exam before practising law.

The Bar Council of India’s website has officially confirmed that the bar exam has been postponed to 6 March 2011, although only shortly afterwards the website went offline after the domain name barcouncilofindia.org was not renewed.

In an unexpected turn the all India bar examination (AIBE) transfer petition may now be scheduled for hearing by a division bench on or after 29 November according to one authoritative source, with completion of the summoning process making way for adjudication on merits.

Latest update: All 2010 law graduates may be able to practise law subject to giving an undertaking they would clear the all-India bar exam within two years, according to a bar council source.

An email from the BCI has confirmed that the bar exam date has been “pushed” and that the body would make a formal statement on 25 November.

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HNLU Raipur has appointed former Punjab University’s department of law chairman Prof Paramjit S Jaswal as its new vice chancellor for a term of five years, reported student website Lawctopus.

Exclusive: Bar Council of India (BCI) members passed a resolution in the absence of chairman Gopal Subramanium today to postpone the bar exam by three months until 6th March 2011, as the BCI is also understood to have discussed future involvement by Rainmaker.