SC seeks Centre, BCI response on PIL for four years LLB course like BTech

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday sought the response of the Centre, University Grants Commission and Bar Council of India on a PIL seeking a direction for setting up a legal education commission to review the syllabus, curriculum and duration of the LLB and LLM courses.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi sought the response of the Centre, UGC , BCI and Law Commission of India on the petition by September 9. The top court directed the registry to list all the pending matters on the issue together on September 9.

The PIL filed by Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay urged the top court to direct to the Centre to set up a legal education commission or expert committee to review the syllabus, curriculum and duration of the LLB and LLM Courses and take appropriate steps to attract the best talent in the legal profession.

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New Education Policy 2020 promotes 4-year graduation courses

The plea further said, " New Education Policy 2020 promotes four-year graduation courses in all professional and academic courses, but BCI has not taken appropriate steps to review the existing syllabus, curriculum and the duration of the LLB and LLM courses".

It said the injury caused to the students is extremely large because the five-year duration of BA-LLB and BBA-LLB courses is disproportionate to the course material.

"The long period puts excessive financial burden on the middle and lower-class families and they are unable to bear such a heavy financial burden. It takes two more years for a student to become the bread-earner in his family," the plea said.

"B.Tech through IITs takes four years of non-superfluous education and that too in a specified field of engineering, whereas BA-LLB or BBА-LLB through the NLU's and various other affiliated colleges consumes five years of a student's precious life while provid ing knowledge of Arts /Commerce, an unrelated and superfluous stream. Hence, the existing five-year course needs to be reviewed by the experts," it said.