legal education

For previous years’ Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) candidates, faculty quality of a law school was the most important factor in choosing whether or not to seek admission, according to a study conducted by Nalsar Hyderabad on legal education reforms which was commissioned by the Department of Justice (DoJ).

The Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) 2018 was almost a complete debacle it is now emerging with students at 243 out of 260 total exam centres reporting snags and glitches so far, as research by Law School 101 revealed, as also reported by Lawctopus. This is contrary to convenor Nuals Kochi’s claims that we reported yesterday that 98.5% of the test centres were glitch-free.

NLIU Bhopal has hit limbo in the appointment of its next director since Tuesday, as first reported by the Times of India, because students have opposed the nomination of Allahabad University professor Bhanu Pratap Singh to the post, based on the ground that in their opinion several other candidates rejected had far greater fitness for the post.

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 Supreme Court last Friday asked some national law universities to give their suggestions on a permanent body to conduct the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) and to look into the misuse of the Non-Resident Indian (NRI) quota in NLU admissions.

NUJS Kolkata has a new interim vice chancellor (VC), retired Calcutta high court judge and former SAT chairman Amit Talukdar, following the resignation of previous VC Prof Ishwara Bhat.

The Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD)’s National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), has ranked public law and other schools, according to the NIRF website, with NLSIU Bangalore topping a list out of 71 law schools that applied.

NLU Jodhpur is the fourth national law university (NLU) to join the league of old-school NLUs giving out state-based reservations to students, after Nalsar Hyderabad, NLSIU Bangalore and NUJS Kolkata, having reserved 25% of seats for students from Rajasthan, reported the Times of India.

NUJS Kolkata vice chancellor (VC) Prof Ishwara Bhat, who has been impeded since last week from joining CNLU Patna as VC by protesting CNLU students, is now facing an ultimatum by the NUJS student body to resign from NUJS this week.

At least 15 fake LLB degrees from NLIU Bhopal reportedly enabled some alumni to bag jobs in the lower judiciary, among other places, according to a probe by retired Justice Abhay Gohil, reported the Hindustan Times, adding that the findings have triggered an internal probe by NLIU of the mark sheets of all of its alumni.

NUJS Kolkata vice chancellor Prof Ishwara Bhat's appointment to the post of CNLU Patna's VC has sparked a campus lock down protest at CNLU, uniting students within 24 hours of us having first published the news of Bhat's selection to lead the Bihar law college.

In a rare move from academia to the law firm world, Link Legal India Law Services has engaged former Delhi University’s Campus Law Centre faculty Solil Paul as chair - academics at the firm.

JGLS Sonepat has asked two of its third-year law students to explain why they should not be suspended or expelled from the law school, after the Indian Express reported that they had been arrested by the Haryana police on Sunday for allegedly possessing nearly 1 kg of hashish, with a reported street value of around Rs 1.3 lakh.

NLSIU Bangalore has converted several compulsory papers part of its LLB degree into elective papers, following Nalsar Hyderabad and top international universities such as Oxford, Harvard and NUS.

The Bar Council of India (BCI) has fined the Delhi University’s law centres Rs 30 lakh and capped its total number of seats this year to around 1,000 fewer than last year, for defaulting on the payment of affiliation fees and for lacking in infrastructure, reported the Indian Express.

NUSRL Ranchi’s student body is out in full force before its campus gates since yesterday, having locked out the administration and faculty members until NUSRL vice chancellor Prof BC Nirmal, and registrar in charge Dr PP Mitra, resign or are removed from their posts and the students’ other demands are met.

GNLU Gandhinagar showed undue favour to an LLB student of the law school, resulting in a loss of Rs 27 lakh to GNLU’s coffers, according to the annual Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report tabled before the Gujarat legislative assembly on 31 March 2017.

Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas has fully funded a chair in “everyday ethics for the legal profession” at GNLU Gandhinagar for at least the next three years, which, if it succeeds, would become a template for the law firm contributing financially to other universities’ courses.

For the last one-and-a-half-odd years, Nalsar Hyderabad has been avidly uploading mostly student-organised guest lectures to its YouTube channel, available to freely watch by all.