Govt flashes red card to 40% law colleges in State

By Vikas Vaidya

Everything is certainly not right with law admissions. Now, Maharashtra Government has flashed a red card to almost 40% law colleges in the State including some of the most well known and oldest Law colleges including Government Law College, and RTMNU’s Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Law College, which produced some of the best legal talent in the country. Interestingly, Higher Education department granted only a day to remove the deficiencies to these colleges and has now asked students to be cautious about admissions.
The status of each college has been marked with certain colour indicating deficiencies and current status. Since the process of giving options for law colleges has begun, Government has asked the students to read the meaning of colour of the colleges mentioned in the website before opting it. Already the admission process has been delayed though the result of Common Entrance Test for the admissions to Law courses (3 year and 5 years) was declared on June 30.
Most of the law colleges are facing crunch of teaching faculty. There are some points like students:teacher ratio, infrastructure, unpaid inspection fees etc which have been identified by Bar Council of India (BCI). They had conveyed it to State Government. Director of Higher Education has sent the letter to all law colleges in State on August 30, 2016 and asked them to comply the loopholes pointed by BCI by August 31, 2016. Director has also asked colleges to submit the report to BCI and a copy should be sent to Directorate. The colleges were expected to submit the affidavit with a mention of fulfilling the requirements and removing the deficiencies. The letter has warned colleges if the deficiencies are not removed, the colleges will not be included in the Centralised Admission Process (CAP) for admissions of 2016-17 and directorate will not be held responsible.
BCI scrutinised the colleges,
   coloured them as per their status and sent the list to Government. Government has displayed all the colleges on website but marked them with red, yellow, green and white colours. The colleges marked with white colour are- Affiliation received from the University and Colleges Approved by Bar Council of India (BCI), Yellow- Colleges Approved subject to BCI Final Approval, Green- Colleges have sent Compliance Report to BCI and Red - Admissions to the College / Division only after Govt. Sanction (Letter) / Approval.
No allocations will be made to colleges where university affiliation and Bar Council approval is pending. Candidates should judiciously exercise their options, after studying and understanding the meaning associated with the colour scheme. It has also made it clear that the status of the colleges will be updated on-line as and when input is received from university, BCI and Government through the respective colleges. The option of the college given by the candidate will be considered for allocation only if the college is approved, says the notice.
Out of 14 law colleges in Rashtrasant Tukadoji Maharaj Nagpur University, only 6 colleges are white marked. Surprisingly, even University-conducted Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Law College is marked by red colour. The reason is- university’s law college did not pay inspection fees to the tune of Rs 21 lakh.

Pvt colleges slam BCI for ‘double standards’

Dr S M Rajan, Principal of Central India College of Law reacted aggressively on this development. He told The Hitavada, “Bar Council is applying double standards. On one hand it has included our college having not sufficient teaching staff but did not say anything to University-conducted law college which has only 9 per cent faculty. Whereas, we have 50% faculty. University had issued circular which says that colleges with 50% faculty can admit the students. But BCI has made 100 per cent faculty mandatory. In that standard there are several colleges which have marked with white colour but do not have one single full-fledged faculty.”
Dr Rajan also pointed  out that though BCI charges inspection fees but never does the inspection. Till July the inspection fees was Rs 1.5 lakh and now it has made it double. Dr Rajan warned that if BCI sticks to its decision then all the law colleges would knock the doors of court. Most colleges which are facing recognition problems are aided colleges. The government has not sanctioned teaching posts for a long time. In 2012-13 Government had changed norms and made the student-teacher ratio 40:1 from 60:1. This has added financial burden on colleges. Higher education authorities are still collecting and verifying data of the law colleges, their intake capacity and approvals. It appears that the entire admission process is likely to go on till mid-September.