Bar Council asks DU to shutdown evening law colleges

 The Bar Council of India (BCI) has asked the Delhi University to shutdown colleges offering law courses in evening shifts, saying such programmes does not ensure proper quality of legal education.

"Taking into account that proper quality of legal education cannot be ensured if classes are run during evening and night hours, the Bar Council of India has taken a policy decision to dispense with the evening colleges.

"Two of your law colleges are offering classes beyond 9 PM which is in violation of the BCI directive...whatever may have been the reason for running these colleges, the same cannot be permitted henceforth," a BCI communication sent to DU said.

The BCI also asked DU to issue a notification stating that no admissions be made for evening classes from the next year.

In an unprecedented move, the BCI, the apex regulatory body for legal education and legal profession in India, had in 2014 decided to derecognise DU's law course after it failed to seek timely extension of the affiliation of its three centres, namely Campus Law Centre, Law Centre-I and Law Centre-II.

However, it was granted a provisional extension of affiliation for the 2014-15 session after DU had proposed to shift to a new building which it claimed "had adequate space" for the faculty to run properly.

However, after a fresh inspection by a BCI panel, the council had noted that besides fresh violations, the illegalities earlier highlighted remain unattended.

Following this, the BCI issued it a show-cause notice to explain the "illegalities" in its functioning including more than permissible student strength, lack of infrastructure and faculty.

It also directed the university to send an undertaking of compliance with rules rectifying the anomalies within four weeks.

Meanwhile, DU's Dean of Faculty of Law Ashwini Kumar Bansal was not available for comments on the issue.

Eminent figures like Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, former HRD minister Kapil Sibal, Supreme Court Judge Rohinton Nariman, former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati and former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Ajit Jogi are among the the Faculty of Law alumni.