The Increasing Diversity by Increasing Access to Legal Education (IDIA) initiative started by Professor Shamnad Basheer (pictured) from the National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS) which has been lauded by all spheres of the legal community is finding it difficult to stick to its initial scale of inculcating a large pool of students at the national law universities (NLUs) due to a lack of funding.

By no means is this lack of funding deterring its founder, Shamnad Basheer who took it upon himself to increase the diversity at the NLUs by creating awareness about law as a career option and training rural students to take the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT). Basheer has approached the Law Minister, Veerappa Moily who has assured him support in the form of setting up a centre and offering scholarships to students selected by the programme. The Law Minister has also promised to set up a corpus in this regard.

The initiative has gotten tremendous support from law students and members of the legal fraternity alike in terms of encouragement and participation. A few lawyers like Nikhil Krishnamurthy of Krishnamurthy & Co., one of the first contributors has contributed about Rs. 1 lakh ($ 2143), Trilegal partners Karan Singh and Sridhar Gorti who have contributed Rs. 5 lakhs ($ 10,700) between themselves and Ameet and Monica Dutta of Luthra have also contributed to the funding. Among the earlier contributors to IDIA was Wadia Ghandy Senior Partner Ashish Ahuja who contributed to the programme in his personal capacity. Wadia Ghandy is also looking to provide preferred internships to students selected by IDIA at their firm.

Speaking to Bar & Bench, Shamnad Basheer said “In terms of funding the response hasn’t been too great but we have received a lot of participation and encouragement from the members of the legal fraternity, like free coaching provided by IMS. I am speaking to the large firms like Amarchand and the rest to contribute to the funding but the lack of funding has been a cause of concern.”

The first phase which consisted of travelling to schools and speaking to the students was personally funded by me and the second phase of funding which involves buying of books and materials has been taken care of by the donations made by lawyers like Nikhil and the rest, it is the third phase of funding which would involve bringing students from the rural areas to big cities to the coaching centres and putting them up in accommodations which might be affected”.

Asked if the lack of funding will bring the project to a halt, Basheer replied saying “Even if there is no outside funding, we will still carry on the initiative but maybe on a smaller scale and keep it less intense. Instead of bringing the students for 10 or 12 coaching sessions, we might have to make do with one or two such coaching sessions. I will continue to personally fund the initiative.”

With Basheer’s passion and involvement, the fundraising should not be an issue. However, there is still a less than adequate response at an institutional level from law firms and industries catering to the legal world.

Click here to know more about the volunteering, participation and funding process at IDIA.

Please see the detailed interview of Shamnad Basheer here.

Please also read the Livemint article on this issue.