Why interfere in academic affairs, leave it to experts: Supreme Court to BCI

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday grilled the Bar Council of India for "interfering in academic affairs of law colleges" and said the task should be left with academicians. A bench of Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh was hearing pleas challenging the BCI's 2021 decision to scrap the one-year LLM course in the country and de-recognise foreign LLMs.

"Why are you interfering in academic affairs? Why should BCI decide curriculum, etc., of law colleges. Some academic expert should take of these things. In this country there is a very big class of lawyers. You have an onerous statutory responsibility of updating their knowledge and organising training programmes for them," the Supreme Court bench said.

The top court added, "You can have training on art of drafting, understanding case laws, etc., and it should be part of your statutory responsibility. The curriculum has to be entrusted to the academicians."

When senior advocate Vivek Tankha, appearing for the BCI, said it was the "existing system", the bench remarked, "You (BCI) have imposed yourself and claiming you are the only authority in this country." Tankha revealed a committee of stakeholders headed by a former chief justice of India was set up to examine and recommend a framework to equate one-year and two-year LLM degrees.

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Supreme Court on BCI responsibilities

The top court, however, expressed its dissatisfaction over the quality of judicial officers being inducted at the grass-root level under the current legal education system. "In legal education, the judiciary is the primary stakeholder...What kind of officers are we getting? Are they properly sensitised. Do they have compassion. Do they understand the ground realties or just deliver mechanical judgments?" it asked.

The bench said academicians could examine the issues. "You (BCI) take care of your responsibility. There are almost 10 lakh lawyers in the country and you should focus on training them rather than going on inspection to law colleges," the bench said.

Senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, appearing for the Consortium of National Law Universities, said the BCI was trying to interfere with not just LLMs, but also PhDs, diplomas. "The purpose of BCI was to regulate entry into legal profession.

Then came the statute which was on admission. We are not saying abolish the two year course (LLM) but will a practising lawyer like to do a two-year LLM or a one-year LLM?" Singhvi said. The top court sought responses from the Centre and the University Grants Commission on the issue and requested attorney general R Venkataramani to assist in the matter. The court then posted the matter in July.