RMLNLU Lucknow

NLU Delhi won against RMLNLU Lucknow at the Jessup North India Rounds, giving Delhi its third win this season of the Mooting Premier League sponsored by Herbert Smith Freehills, and pushing RMLNLU from fifth to fourth place in the rankings.

RMLNLU Lucknow vice chancellor (VC) Balraj Chauhan will finish his five-year tenure as VC at the university on 2 January. The university has formed a search committee to appoint the new VC, and has invited applications for the post latest by Monday.

Exclusive: The High Court of Allahabad chastised RMLNLU Lucknow’s administration for its ill-handling of disciplinary proceedings against its student - late Sahil Zaidi, who suffered an unnatural death in his final year, during the pendency of the proceedings two years after they were initiated against him.

The fourth season of the Mooting Premier League sponsored by Herbert Smith began this month with top law schools notching up early wins this season.

OPEN Magazine investigates the alleged cover up in the tragic early-August death of RMLNLU Lucknow student Satnam Singh Mann, where six have been arrested with two, including a policeman, charged with murder. OPEN excerpts:

“This is nothing but an effort to save the real culprits of the murder of Satnam Singh.” …

“The complaint lodged by the ashram authorities was very serious,” says Circle Inspector Radhakrishnappillai, who had arrested Satnam, “There was a similar attack on Amma two months earlier during her trip to the US. That assailant was also a Bihari. They suspected some connection with that incident.” And then he lets the coin drop. He reveals the real source of police anxiety: “This person had a beard, he was chanting, ‘Bismillah ar-rehmaan ar-raheem.’ How could I be sure he was not a terrorist?”

Satnam, a Brahmin by birth, had ironically been a victim of Islamophobia…

It was not the first mysterious death with links to the Amritanandamayi muth…

Whether that will serve the cause of justice, however, is far from clear. Satnam’s relatives and friends are doubtful. Says Vimal, “We believe the actual culprits are hiding behind a curtain.” Given the rot in the system, many fear it will stay that way.

[from OPEN magazine via @islandexpress]

RMLNLU Lucknow fourth-year students decided not to submit their complaint application against the university to Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav. In the application, the students had complained about poor quality placements, administration and faculty in the university to Yadav. In an informal meeting with him yesterday, the batch’s representatives agreed to attempt resolving the matter internally with the university’s vice chancellor (VC).

The students met RMLNLU VC professor Balraj Chauhan today, and had a three-hour long discussion with him in which, according to authoritative sources on campus, all pressing issues including retention of good faculty, placements and “everything the students really wanted to talk about” were touched.

The next meeting of the students with the VC is scheduled for 6 September.

RMLNLU Lucknow students wrote to Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav yesterday, complaining about poor placements of the batches graduating in years 2011 and 2012, generally poor campus placement efforts, lackadaisical administration, a lack of professionalism of the university’s assistant registrar, degradation in faculty quality, and no redressal of student grievances.

The students requested Yadav, who is also the university’s chancellor, to set up a student body to which the faculty and the university administration would be accountable for satisfactorily addressing student grievances.

The complaining students noted in the application that decisions directly affecting the students, such as those relating to the mess fee and internet access, were taken in a non-transparent manner without student vote.

Grievances against the assistant registrar included lack of action taken to solve problems related to internet connectivity despite repeated complaints, maintaining heavily anomalous records of repeat examinations’ marks, and failure to enforce security measures to check illegal entry and stay of graduated or suspended students in the university campus and hostels.

RMLNLU vice chancellor professor Balraj Chauhan told Legally India that he was holding a meeting with the students who had signed the application later today.

He said: “See the statements of our university and compare them with other universities. There are problems, the internet supply comes from BSNL, there are local faults, we need more teachers, I am short-staffed. “The university is run by the chancellor and the government, it is a government-funded university. You see, there are certain issues related to payment. Some things are partially true, partially wrong. Everything they expect from me and I must provide those facilities, but it is also in the hands of the government service providers,” he added. [Application]

RMLNLU Lucknow’s 2012 graduating class of 154 this year secured 25 jobs, with most going to legal process outsourcing (LPO) companies and eight law firms that were first-time recruiters.

Nuals Kochi and NLU Orissa climbed in the traditional college preferences of Common Law Admissions Test (CLAT) at the expense of RMLNLU Lucknow and CNLU Patna, while other CLAT preferences remained unchanged in the corrected university allotment list, with NLSIU Bangalore coming top followed by Nalsar Hyderabad, NUJS Kolkata, NLIU Bhopal and NLU Jodhpur.

Jindal Global Law School (JGLS) Sonipat defeated National Taiwan University in the finals of the ELSA WTO Asian rounds. Symbiosis Law School, Noida beat NLIU Bhopal in the finals of the Pro Bono Enviro Moot at SOEL Chennai. RMLNLU Lucknow overcame Leiden University in the finals of the The Leiden-Sarin International Air Law Moot Court Competition.

NLU Jodhpur accomplished its third Mooting Premier League 3 win yesterday after getting past RMLNLU Lucknow in the finals of the Stetson North India qualifying rounds.

Exclusive: At least 13 students in the very first graduating batch of RMLNLU Lucknow will be joining desk-based jobs, with three securing has placed out of which three were pre-placement offers (PPOs).