Today, 2nd May, The Delhi High Court dismissed a plea seeking the establishment of a Legal Education Commission. The petition aimed to transform legal education in India. However, the court ruled against it, citing procedural and jurisdictional issues. This decision maintains the current framework for legal education in the country.
New Delhi: The Delhi High Court, On Thursday, dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) requesting the Central Government to establish a Legal Education Commission, similar to the Medical Education Commission. This commission, comprising retired judges, law professors, and lawyers, would assess the viability of implementing a four-year Bachelor of Law course akin to the existing B. Tech program.
Justices Manmohan and Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora, presiding over the bench, stated that crafting academic courses falls outside the purview of the judiciary. They emphasized that relevant authorities are actively engaged in ongoing evaluations of legal education and its structures.
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As the court leaned towards dismissing the PIL, the petitioner expressed willingness to withdraw the plea. Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, a practicing lawyer and BJP leader, requested the Bar Council of India to establish an expert committee consisting of retired judges, jurists, and educationists. The purpose was to assess the compatibility of the five-year Bachelor of Law Course with the New Education Policy 2020.
The plea instructed the Expert Committee to generate a report on the necessity of completing a BA, BBA, or B.Com before pursuing a Bachelor of Law, which is also a graduation course. Additionally, it highlighted that while the New Education Policy 2020 promotes four-year graduation programs, the Bar Council of India has neither evaluated the existing five-year Bachelor of Law Course program nor introduced a four-year Bachelor of Law course to date.
The argument presented contends that the current five-year BA-LLB or BBA-LLB programs offered through National Law Universities and various affiliated colleges are unnecessarily lengthy and costly. The plea suggests that these programs incorporate an extraneous component of Arts or Commerce education, which is not directly relevant to legal studies. Consequently, this extends the duration and increases the financial burden on students, making the pursuit of legal education less appealing compared to alternatives like engineering or civil services.
The plea argues,
“Unlike the streamlined four-year B.Tech programs offered at IITs, which provide focused education in a specific field of engineering, the five-year law programs dilute the intensity of legal education with unrelated subjects, resulting in a protracted and expensive educational journey. This not only imposes a financial strain but also potentially delays graduates’ entry into the legal profession,”
Furthermore, the plea reminisces about shorter, more direct paths to legal practice in the past, citing examples of prominent legal figures such as the late Ram Jethmalani and Fali Nariman, who began practicing law at considerably younger ages under previous educational frameworks. This historical precedent supports the argument for a more efficient educational model.
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The plea also notes societal shifts that indicate a capacity for younger people to handle responsibilities earlier, such as the lowering of the voting age from 21 to 18 years and changes in average lifespan expectations. These changes support the feasibility and potential benefits of a shorter, four-year law program.
The plea states,
“Given these changes in societal norms and capabilities, a four-year law degree could better align with today’s faster-paced, efficiency-oriented world. The existing five-year course seems more focused on financial gain than on providing optimal educational value, raising concerns about the motivations behind its structure and length,”
In essence, the plea calls for a re-evaluation of the current five-year law curriculum, proposing a more condensed and focused four-year course that could potentially enhance the accessibility and attractiveness of legal education.