LEGAL EDUCATION IN INDIA: SOME CONTEMPORARY CHALLEGES BY - DR. ANAND KUMAR
LEGAL EDUCATION IN INDIA: SOME
CONTEMPORARY CHALLEGES
ABSTRACT
We must take care that there should never be politics without
principles, Pleasure without character, Commerce without morality, Wealth
without work, Science without humanity and worship without sacrifice. Human
aspirations for progress can only be realized by agreed values and standards
applying to all people and institutions at all times. Undoubtedly, prior
importance should be given to the education to equip with rudiments of basic
principles and law of land. We mean to say that the legal education should be
fashioned in tune with the contemporary changes taking place in the national as
well as international spear.With technological advancement and liberalization
of economy there has been a mushrooming of law colleges without any significant
thought being put behind the problem of dearth of faculty and content of legal
education imparted in such institutions. The character of a law school
determines the character of the bar and the bench. While National Law schools
and many private law colleges have been successful in imparting education
commensurate with changing global trends and to a great extent evolving social
conditions however admission to such institutions has many barriers inter
alia one’s position of privilege in society that determines the capability
to get admission and sustain education in such institutions of legal learning.
Economic liberalization and changing social condition brought to fore the
deplorable condition of legal education in India. Moreover, the National Education 2020 proposes sweeping changes
including upgrading the legal education at global level as. Keeping all things
in mind, this paper aims at analyzing legal education in India as it stand
today.
Key Words: Legal Education in India,
National Law Schools, Private Law Colleges, Standard of Legal Education, Bar
Council of India and NEP 2020.
General
Legal System of a country
reflects advancement of the civilization of the society as a whole and the
individuals in particular in that Nation. And the substance of the legal system
in a country as a matter of fact rest upon the members of the legal profession,
as Jurists and Legal luminaries and Judges who uphold, develop and strengthen
the legal system of the land. The strength of the legal system certainly remain
on the bedrock of the legal education which decides the quality of legal
profession and judiciary of a country. Legal education imparted and adopted in
a society sounds the socio-economic background of the State.[2]Law,
legal education and development have become inter-related concepts in modern
developing societies which are struggling to develop into social welfare states
and are seeking to ameliorate the socio-economic condition of the people by
peaceful means. The same is true of India. It is the crucial function of legal
education to produce lawyers with a social "vision in a developing country
like India.[3]
The policy of the legal
education is determined by the guiding philosophy of the Indian Constitution
reflected in the Preamble, Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles of State
Policy. Therefore, the legal
education policy must be molded in accordance with such avowed constitutional
philosophy so as to give affect to the constitutional ideology.
Laws for regulating
professional legal education in India derive their source from entry 66, 67 and
78 of List 1, Schedule VII of the Constitution of India. The Bar Council of India (BCI) established
under the Advocates Act, 1961 regulates legal education and law practice in
India. To promote legal education and to lay down standards of such education
in consultation with the Universities in India imparting such education and the
the State Bar Councils.[4]
In addition to setting standards for legal education it also grants recognition
to universities offering courses in Law.[5]
Legal Education in
India-Conceptual Aspects
Legal education since the
14th law commission report has seen many reforms aimed at bringing the
standards at par with international standards and changing social conditions. The
14th Law Commission Report of 1958 on Reform of Judicial
Administration also observed that,"...the absence of juristic thought and
publications in our country is no doubt due in part to our defective system of
legal education which fails to recognize the study of law as a branch of
learning and as a science. Nor is the education in law imparted at universities
such as to fit the law-graduate for the profession notwithstanding its supposed
bias in favour of a professional career."[6]The
184th Law Commission Report on Legal Education and professional
training and proposals for amendments to the Advocates Act, 1961 and the UGC
Act, 1956 highlighted that "...globalization, deregulation and
privatization have given rise to 'new challenges and recommended that specialized
areas of law like intellectual property, corporate law, human rights, ADR and
international business transactions have to be introduced to law schools."[7]
The said perspective was also shared by the National Knowledge Commission in
its report of the working group on legal education. Early references to the
concept of a National Law School in India can be found in a report in 1964
prepared by a committee set up by the Delhi University."[8]The
BCI with an objective of ensuring the best minds taking up law at the right age
in 2016 issued a circular13 by which Clause 28 in Schedule III of Rule 11 of
the Rules of Legal Education, 2008 (that was earlier withdrawn in 2013), was
introduced for providing a maximum age limit of as low as 20 years for taking
admission in the integrated Bachelor of Law degree programme. The said circular
was challenged before the Hon'ble Supreme Court wherein the operation of the
impugned circular had been stayed 14 and at present there is no age restriction
on admission to LLB Courses. Even after half a century since India attained the
independence, it is really moanful to note that the legal education has not
received its due recognition and appreciation what it infact deserves and needs
which ultimately resulted in tardy progress of legal education. Apparently the
support and assistance received by the legal education is in fact negligible
and hardly appreciable when compared to other disciplines of studies. A very
important factor in ensuring equitable access to legal education is diversity.
With the increase in number of National Law Schools and private universities,
the admission to such institutions is restricted to the elite or those with
adequate financial resources. One of the intrinsic goals of legal education
today especially in 2021 has been to meaningfully pursue the goals of social
justice enshrined in our constitution however the degree of representation of
students from socially and economic deprived diverse sections of the society is
appalling and a matter of great concern. An admission to a five-year law course
in a about 23 National Law school today costs around 15 lakhs and the figure is
even higher in case of private law schools. Lack of a good faculty has been one
of the most concerning barriers to legal education. The predicament has many
layers to it. With the mushrooming of law schools, an abysmally low number of
good law teachers are employed in a majority of law schools. Legal
professionals who have had a stellar legal education and academic record are
often absorbed by Law schools offering high pay scales and career growth
prospects. With infrastructure limitations and lack of funding many law Schools
are unable to employ credible academicians to impart quality legal education to
their students. Further, it is often seen that law school while employing
teachers from the upper caste strata of society are unable to sensitise them to
the individual circumstances of students belonging to the socially and
economically backward classes causing an irreversible sense of alienation
amongst such students.[9]
Legal Education:
Inter-Generational Skills
Since antiquity, the
humanity has revered education as the ultimate power to acquire supremacy in
all sphere of life. Human aspirations for progress can only be realized by
agreed values and standards applying to all people and institutions at all
times. We must take care that there should never be politics without
principles, Pleasure without character, Commerce without morality, Wealth
without work, Science without humanity and worship without sacrifice.[10]Undoubtedly
prime importance should be given to the basic legal education to equip an
advocate or legal professional with rudiments of law of the land,
simultaneously the legal education should be fashioned in tune with the contemporary
changes taking place in the national as well as international spear. It is a
fact that the legal education in India as moulded to some extent in this
direction, but much more radical and significant changes have to be affected in
the spear of Indian legal education so as to enable it to meet the challenges
for the present world.[11]While
structuring the course of study of legal education, multiple factors must be
comprehensively kept in mind by the makers of the policy of the legal Education
unlike other professional educations. Legal Education has its own glaring mark
of distinction, therefore in order to make the legal education a perfect one
and fool proof, the policy makers must act vigilantly and judiciously in this
regard.[12]Interdisciplinary in legal education can
be traced back to Upendra Baxi’s, ‘Notes Towards A Socially relevant Legal
Education’ the earliest authoritative piece that one can refer to. The report
was transformational, especially in the Indian context, as it led to many
reforms in legal education. Such changes are evident in the various Law
Commission Reports, especially the 184th Law Commission Report on Legal
Education & Professional Training, the Advocates Act, 1961, University
Grants Commission Act, 1956, and other imminent policies that support the
progression of interdisciplinary, paving the way for the renaissance of
juristic learning.[13] The 184th Law Commission
Report is an important starting point that sets the pace for engaging with
interdisciplinary research in legal education, which elaborates and stresses
the need for competence and social responsibility, invariably demanding the
engagement of law with interdisciplinary teaching, research and extension.
LEGAL EDUCATION VIS-A-VIS
NEP 2020
Dr. S. Radhakrishnan
presiding over the University Education Commission stated, "In our
country, we have eminent practitioners and excellent judges. The law has also
given us great leaders and men consecrated to public service. Most conspicuous
of these is Gandhi ji. We have no internationally known exponents of
jurisprudence and legal studies. Our colleges of law do not hold a place of
high esteems either at home or abroad, nor has law become an area of profound
scholarship and enlightened research."
The National Education
Policy 2020 proposes sweeping changes including opening up of Indian higher
education to foreign universities, dismantling of the UGC and the All-India
Council for Technical Education (AICTE). 17 The Policy is believed to have been
built on the foundational pillars of Access, Equity, Quality, Affordability and
Accountability. 18 The Policy also prescribes for Higher Education Commission
of India (HECI) which will be set up as a single overarching umbrella body for
higher education, excluding medical and legal education. Clause 20.4 of the
Education policy provides, "Legal education needs to be competitive
globally, adopting best practices and embracing new technologies for wider
access to and timely delivery of justice. At the same time, it must be informed
and illuminated with Constitutional values of Justice - Social, Economic, and
Political and directed towards national reconstruction through instrumentation
of democracy, rule of law, and human rights. The curricula for legal studies
must reflect socio-cultural contexts along with, in an evidence-based manner,
the history of legal thinking, principles of justice, the practice of
jurisprudence, and other related content appropriately and adequately. State
institutions offering law education must consider offering bilingual education
for future lawyers and judges in English and in the language of the State in
which the institution is situated."[14]
The BCI recently notified
the Legal Education Rules which bring in some significant changes to the
existing framework of postgraduate law courses. A step that has the potential
to impact the most is the abolition of one year LL.M which was introduced in
2013. The decision to reintroduce the two-year program could have been
contemplated upon sincerely with an understanding that in most Institutions the
content of the course is primarily an extension of the bachelor's program only
with little or no in-depth study and most of the topics are a mere repetition
of what has already been covered at the graduate level. Scholars have often
questioned the role of BCI in regulating higher legal education. It is believed
that a master's degree is wholly relevant a criterion for being enrolled as an
Advocate. Being an academician entails skills that require knowledge of
different types of research techniques. Late Prof. Shamnad Basheer advocated
the importance of effective consultation and effectively arguing that BCI is
neither constitutionally allowed nor institutionally competent to regulate the
full spectrum of legal education.
Conclusion
The rapid expansion of
cyber technology undoubtedly brought about marvelous and unforeseeable changes
in every walk of individual and institutional activities where by even the
sphere of legal system is also not left untouched by the cyber technology.
However at present the legal education is not sufficiently updated in
accordance with the fast developing cyber technology. Globalization as present
is a universal and an inevitable phenomenon where from no State can isolate
itself from its impacts. Globalization obviously as its pervasive and universal
affect not only on socio economic relations it will have its influence even on
the legal system of a country. It is honestly felt that when a comparative and
critical survey of Indian legal education is made with legal education policy
adopted and practiced in other countries, India has to travel a long distance
to attain the goals of producing a perfect, well trained and a distinct legal
luminary, professional and a judge as many more significant changes have to be
brought about through the updated policy of legal education. Therefore it is
hoped that though it is high time, the legal education which, infact till now
is Cinderella of state and society will receive due recognition and flourish
with flying colours to meet manifold and divergent challenges of day Therefore
it hardly needs any special emphasis that the present legal education remains
an outdated and ineffective one if the state remains blind to the fast emerging
trends of globalization. The effects of globalization certainly requires
changes in the legal system at the gross root level so as to arm the legal
professional and all other connected legal personnel to meet successfully the
challenges faced in the sphere of legal field. The legal education honestly, to
add in this context, requires togive more and more practical orientation to the
students of law, as such the curriculum of law must be devised in this
direction suitably and the final year law students should be exclusively
concentrated to the practical instructions in the subjects of law. Such
curriculum must be given uniformity at the national level.
[1]Asst.
Professor in-Law& Former Director in-Charge, Chhotu Ram Institute of Law,
Rohtak-124001, E-mail: anandcrlaw@gmail.com ; +919896150198
[2]S.V.M. Kamasal, “Insights
into Legal Education”
in Prof. G. Manoher Rao and Prof. K. Shrinivas Raoet.al. (eds.), Legal
Educarion in India Challenges & Perspectives 203-04
(Asia Law House, Hyderabad, 2017).
[3]Prof. A. Lakshminath,
“Legal Education in India-Contemporary” id at 3.
[4]Section 7(1) (h), The
Indian Advocate Act, 1961.
[5]Section 7 (1)(I), supra.
[6] Aakarsh Kamra and Dr.
Garima Tiwari, “Perspectives and Challenges on Legal Education in India” 49 (1)
IBR 21-22 (2022).
[7]Law Commission of India, 184th Report on The Legal Education
& Professional Training and Proposals for Amendments to the Advocates Act,
1961 and the University Grants Commission Act, 1956 (December 2002).
[9]Supra at24-26.
[10]Ashok Mehta, “Education”
13 Indian Bar Review XLIII (2) 2016.
[11]Supra note 2.
[12]Id.