The Law School Folk: The Legislative Research and Policy Club at the National Law University, Odisha

The Legislative Research and Policy Club, constituted in the National Law University, Odisha is student-run body that analyses and critiques different legislations. Not only does the LRPC reach out to Standing Committees and individual Ministries, but the club also regularly contributes analytical pieces to newspapers. In this interview with Bar & Bench, the Club talks about how it all started, keeping the enthusiasm flowing and their future plans..Bar & Bench: When did the LRPC come into existence? What is the current composition and what brought you all together? .LRPC: The Club had 17 members when it began in late 2013, consisting of students driven towards the novel avenue of policy research. Due to the zealous involvement of the initial members and their commendable work, the word about the Club spread around pretty quick. Fairly recently, due to the increasing workload of the Club and escalating interest amongst the students, the membership has risen to 30, and has students from each batch of the University. .The main aim of the club is to analyze the pending bill and to provide research and information support to the Parliamentarians, State Assemblies, Party Leaders and other organizations working in and around country and states to have more in-depth understanding of the issues. We also work on archaic laws and come up with recommendations in order to evolve them to meet the needs of changing times. .B&B: Do you receive any guidance from the faculty? .LRPC: We are more of an inclusive group wherein any work, even if on a subject matter unfamiliar to us, is divided, dealt and shared by the members themselves. But in advisory capacity experienced faculty or professionals in that subject are consulted as and when needed. The faculty response has been immensely encouraging as they keep reviewing our work and keep motivating us to continue this initiative. But more than anything, it is the dedication and the hard work of every member that drives the Club as a whole. We guide each other by means of constructive arguments, engaging debates and accepting difference in opinions..B&B: LRPC members have managed to rack up quite a few publications in newspapers – How did you go about this?.LRPC: We realised that working on the analysis of a bill is a time-taking process. Also, not all the members of the Club work on every bill all the time. To utilize this intermittent and spare time, we came up with the idea of writing on contemporary legal issues and sending them over to the newspapers. This makes the members acquainted with the imminent areas in law, which may prove handy in future if a law or policy related to that area needs to be analysed. When we approached the newspaper editorial teams, they welcomed our idea and their responses were very encouraging. Since then we try to get atleast one write-up published in a newspaper every week..B&B: When it comes to analysing Bills, how do you settle on a particular Bill?.LRPC: With respect to the selection of any particular bill for discussion, the process is basically two-fold. At first we conduct a preliminary research in order to find out about the existing bills and the area of law they address, and once we have a tentative list we put the options to vote before every member in the Club. Each member is expected to vote in favour or against the bill, depending on his interest in the bill. The bill with maximum number of votes is selected for the purposes of discussion..B&B: Can you share some of the highs and the lows since the LRPC was formed? .LRPC: The ubiquitous problem with every student run club is the dwindling of enthusiasm with time. The strains of academics, co-curricular activities and other commitments have often spelled feeble fading of radical ideas into oblivion. We were apprehensive of meeting the same fate with this Club. But thankfully, the enthusiasm is still brimming. It is beyond wonderful, what we do. A group of people sitting in a classroom after a full day of classes, discussing, sparring and (thankfully, sometimes) coming to a consensus as to how a provision in a bill is to be interpreted..B&B: What are your thoughts on the role of Indian law schools in the field of policy-making? .LRPC: It is a well admitted fact that neither law nor a policy can be conceptualised in vacuum. The modality in prevalence is a cyclical continuum of policy being employed to frame a law; which in turn, aids to contribute to policy for effectuating it in its arena of operation. Thus, it becomes quintessential for institutions facilitating research in law to promote the interest of, both – the academia and the student fraternity; to fathom and further delve into the hotspots of policy framing and implementation. Only then, would a holistic understanding of a legal system be shared amongst those working in the area of legislative drafting and implementation. In this regard, since much impetus is now being focussed towards enhancing Legal Education to expedient standards, the law schools in India could serve as a crucial component in exploiting the available resources and intellect to identify the pitfalls of the present system and propose a feasible yet effective model..B&B: Any projects lined up for the future?.LRPC: After establishing a firm ground in analyzing Bills, Rules, Act, the Club plans to explore the possibility of drafting private member bills, and will endeavour to get it presented through the interested members of the Parliament. It further plans to dive deeper in archaic legislations and explore their relevance and synchronize them with present times by redrafting the legislation. This too shall be submitted to the concerned departments..The Club would also extend free legal consultation wherever and whenever possible. It also plans to arrange workshop on legislation drafting of acts amendment, rules, Bills. For this the club would extent warm welcome to organizations and people which already expertise in respective fields. It also plans to approach Bureau of Parliamentary Studies to conduct courses on legislative drafting in law Universities..(Every fortnight, Law School Folk will feature a student-run organisation of a law school. If you would like your college to be featured on Bar & Bench, send in a mail to info@barandbench.com with “LSF” in the subject line)