law schools
The India Today magazine has published its annual ad-supported college rankings supplement again, which also ranks law schools, and as we have written several times, other than the fact that a lot of parents make their choices based on that list, no one should really care.
The Gujarat high court today dismissed GNLU’s letters patent appeal against the high court’s order that had called GNLU an “oligarchy” which “casually” denies its students basic human rights.
Gandhinagar student has won against the university administration in the Gujarat high court over what the high court termed its “wholly baseless, arbitrary, malafide, unreasonable, illegal” decision to physically frisk and persecute a student after an exam, after wrongly suspecting the student was “hiding something”, and then cancelling that student’s exam result.
The annual India Today magazine law school rankings have seen NLIU Bhopal, NLU Jodhpur and RGNUL Patiala disappear out of the magazine’s top 20 rankings, after NUJS Kolkata threatened the magazine with a press council complaint in 2010.
The Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) 2015 has published the long-awaited full list of university allocations that take account student’s preferences.
The Ministry of Consumer Affairs has sanctioned a grant of Rs 1 crore to NLSIU Bangalore to build a “centre for mediation for the protection of consumers”, headed up by consumer law and practice chair professor Ashok R Patil, reported The Hindu.
In 2013 Legally India had reported that NLSIU had received Rs 8 crore from the University Grants Commission (UGC) to upgrade its facilities.
The margin between NLU Jodhpur and NLIU Bhopal is negligible this year, according to an analysis of the preferences of candidates taking the 2014 Common Law Admissions Test (CLAT).
The Economist reports how some US law schools, such as the University of Virginia (UVA) and George Washington University, have managed to boost their placement statistics to up to 97.5 per cent, despite a continuing terrible economy for US law graduates. The secret, apparently, is that the law schools pay graduates a salary to work in NGOs or the like, boosting their rank in US News' law school league tables [The Economist (porous paywall)]
Ramlu wants moolah: RMLNLU Lucknow on Saturday decided to raise its fees from the current Rs 80,000 per year to an, as yet, undecided amount, which “will be at par with other national law schools”. However, “the university will consider the financial status of students who come from UP before finalising the fees”, according to university sources [TOI]
CCI short staffed: The Competition Commission of India’s (CCI) director general AK Chauhan has asked for direct recruits for his office up to at least 25 per cent of the CCI’s total employees, after being faced with a manpower crunch. [ET]
Inadequate drug tests: Serial PIL filer, who started a PIL against Ranbaxy in the Supreme Court this month, has argued that the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) suffers from inadequate infrastructure and staff shortages, causing new drugs to be approved for the Indian market by short-circuiting testing (and in some cases not testing them at all on Indian patients) [BS]
Outlook ranks NLS: Outlook India magazine ranked NLSIU Bangalore as India’s “best” law college, ahead of Nalsar Hyderabad, NLIU Bhopal, NUJS Kolkata, ILS Pune and NLU Jodhpur, Symbiosis Pune, GNLU Gandhinagar. Ninth was Amity Delhi, followed by New Law College Pune BVDU, Jamia Islamia Delhi, VHU Varanasi, MS Ramaiah Bangalore, Osmania University Hyderabad and Bangalore Institute of Legal Studies [Ranking, via Bar & Bench]. Rival weekly India Today ranked Nalsar Hyderabad as India’s “best” law school last week. Legally India has reduced coverage of third party law school rankings since last year.
Nalsar tops India Today: Nalsar Hyderabad displaced NLSIU Bangalore at first place in India’s top 25 law colleges this year according to India Today. NLSIU, Delhi University, NUJS Kolkata, NLIU Bhopal, GNLU Gandhinanar, Symbiosis Pune, NLU Jodhpur, ILS Pune, AMU Aligarh, BHU Varanai and Amity Law School Delhi follow Nalsar, in that order. [Rankings via India Today] Legally India has reduced coverage of third party law school rankings since last year.
Sweeping marriages: As social media buzz continued about the Madras HC maintenance order on sex and marriages, former Madras HC judge K Chandru “warns against the tendency to make sweeping statements in family matters”, saying that the Justice CS Karnan’s judgment reported yesterday is likely to be “misunderstood” by subordinate courts, which might force people into relationships merely because they have had sexual intercourse. [Times of India] Karnan, in turn, today defended the judgment, saying it was misunderstood, and “not only for the purpose of giving relief to the victim woman, but also to maintain the cultural integrity of India” [Hindu]
Suicidal state of affairs: “Treating a person who is driven to take such a drastic step as a hard-core criminal violates basic human dignity in a way few other actions do,” argues psychiatrist Dr Ashoka Jahnavi Prasad about the law criminalising suicide attempts. He says that India should follow the example of 59 countries who have decriminalised attempted suicide. [Newslaundry]
Anti-PRISM PIL: Ex-Delhi University law prof, Professor SN Singh, files PIL to stop government using US internet companies’ services, and prays for government to take action against for breach of privacy, after US internet companies were revealed to have shared data of non-US citizens with US spies in leaked top secret documents [PTI]
Nuals Kochi drops behind RMLNLU Lucknow and CNLU Patna but seven oldest national law schools stay top.
Exclusive: NLSIU Bangalore has launched a host of new construction in its academic block, hostels, and basketball courts while NLU Delhi has decided to renegotiate the pay of its foreign-educated faculty, after both law schools were sanctioned close to Rs 8 crore by the University Grants Commission (UGC) in November 2012.
A similar grant was also extended by the UGC to the other 12 national law schools (NLU) late last year under the eleventh five-year plan, after their vice chancellors (VC) lobbied aggressively against excluding the law schools from central funding.
Dear final year students worried about not cracking BigLaw: Do you want to build a diverse work profile, show the confidence to go solo a few years on, have senior lawyers as friends and not just colleagues, and maintain work-life balance while you’re at it? Give small law firms a shot and continue learning the law [Survive Law]
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.
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.
In today’s edition of Mint: The National Law School of India University (NLSIU) Bangalore may face a funding gap of Rs. 2 crore this fiscal year after the Karnataka state government cut its grant by 50% from Rs. 4 crore last year. NLSIU was established in 1987 as the first of India’s flagship national law universities (NLUs).
Legally India is looking to document more law school events and is starting out with a listing of nine events of the past two months. Please let us have your feedback and ideas.