Law students team up with lawyers to form “GrayCheck” – Online empowerment platform against law school administration

A team of law students have recently launched “GrayCheck”, an online platform to raise and solve student grievances against law school administration. GrayCheck, with a tagline of “There is a solution. You”, essentially allows a student to send across and resolve her grievances in a completely anonymous manner..Ideally, any allegation made against the administration needs to be supported with some sort of evidence, be it photographs or official letters etc. This evidence is then sifted through and if a legal recourse is available then it will be exercised, which is where lawyers Deepak Khosla and KV Dhananjay step in. Both of them have agreed to provide their legal services in such matters, with the condition that their fees be paid within ten years of the concerned student acquiring his or her Bar license..If it is decided that legal recourse is not a viable option, then the materials collected could be posted online..Law student and the man behind GrayScale Legal, Rohan Mukherjee is one of the people behind this initiative..(Excerpts from an e-mail interview below).Bar & Bench: What are the kinds of grievances a student can raise through the platform?.Rohan Mukherjee: Ones that have received no attention from the institution internally. Our intention is not to disrupt the internal processes and mechanisms of institutes, but when it fails to work, the administration that is, we won’t shy away from disrupting that. As students, we have first-hand experiences when it comes to an entire paper being ignored for a semester (one of the national law universities skipped the CPC for an entire batch – an entire batch having no knowledge of Rules and Orders – in addition to that batch receiving no quality Criminal Law lectures as well), we see how ‘attendance’ is used as the Achilles’ heel for us (another institute compelled students to attend a seminar on a weekend using the fear of cancelling their guaranteed attendance provided for moots, debates etc); recruitment of sub-standard and inefficient faculties, ergo services for which students pay north of a lakh per annum – this can go on..GrayCheck shall serve as a platform to empower each student to raise his/her voice – as a collective or as an individual. Grievances dealing with absurd and arbitrary administrative decisions, blatant ignorance of the welfare of students, callous attitude towards the imparting of education, annual fee collected with zero quid pro quo when it comes to reciprocating that with quality faculty, – essentially, in any given scenario, where a student feels wronged, or where the silent observer can only look on and tell themselves that it’s all a matter of a few more years and that “this too shall pass”- can be raised through this platform..As Deepak Khosla says, “The aggrieved student can seek substantial damages in writ jurisdiction (perhaps even exceeding the entire tuition of 3-5 years), as well as costs of the writ, especially if he issues notice to the University in advance.”.These Universities are States for our purpose, so we might as well hold them liable under tort. It’s depressingly hilarious if you think about it – how they get away with this all the time – and pathetic that we as students pursuing law, sit back and allow them to. Now, that is the form of power we have as students – as stakeholders. Nay, as persons whose education loans are filling up the coffers of these Universities..B&B: So how does it all work?.RM: The process itself is simple. Anyone can go to webmail.grayscale.org.in, log in (Username: checker@grayscale.org.in |Password: c#eckeR876 ) and send a mail to admin@grayscale.org.in. It is imperative to back it up with evidence – attach photographs of the notices, of the events on campus, university mails, official letters etc – in order to allow us to proceed on a good faith basis. On no stage shall the identity of the mailer be asked for..Now, there are grievances that have a legal recourse and some that don’t. For that we have online media to blog about it, to spread the word – because the pretty image that these men on top hold so dear is their weakest point – that is what you pose a threat to..In a nutshell, when a student feels that there’s something seriously wrong with the way things are being managed on campus, or as in most cases, when they are not managed, he/she can use this platform. Legal recourse or not, we will take them down – one by one..B&B: So once the problem/grievance is sent across via the platform, it will be screened by some individuals?.RM: We have a small and dedicated team set out to verify the facts without compromising on anyone’s identity. Once that is taken care of, prima facie if there’s a legal issue here – the advocates take over; if not, the journalists do. Sharks and piranhas. .B&B: How did you get KV Dhananjay and Deepak Khosla to come on board? Was it difficult to convince them to provide their legal services?.RM: Grayscale Legal had many opportunities to work with Deepak Khosla in the past few months, and his acute sense of idealism – and the drive to take a swing at the establishment with a menacing smile is something I personally identify with. A natural and first choice for this initiative, then..In his words, “Nothing that a true litigator loves more than litigating. Getting into the pig-trough, so to speak. QED.” It was Deepak Khosla that introduced GrayCheck to K.V. Dhananjay and vice versa. Both Khosla and Dhananjay specialize in tort against the state – apart from specializing in administrative law, corporate law, and white-collar crimes. That aside, they believe that this is a fight worth dusting your gloves for. And of course, they will be charging when the private interests overweigh the public ones in terms of the accusation. It was flexible and extremely encouraging on their part to decide to charge the petitioner/s, being students, within 10 years after they receive their Bar licenses. Besides, a rate of 18% p.a. (compounded annually) is also in place starting from the time they receive the Bar license, which is waivable for students who intern under them for at least 6 months, or turn out to be outstanding public-interest pro bono litigators. A fair and flexible bargain. .B&B: Was there any one instance that pushed you towards creating this platform?.RM: Many. Thanks to the work I get to do via Grayscale Legal, and the people I meet– these instances in other campuses very often blare out to me. Now is there a particular one that triggered this? Of course. But let’s wait for the anonymous guild to take them down now. To be honest, being familiar with the law school scenario, this is what I have been exposed to for the last 4 years – but this initiative has seen enthusiastic support from my peers who are in engineering, medical and other colleges – and want GrayCheck to include them as well, which it will. Somehow, this is the norm these days – but no more..We end up paying north of 10 lakhs in a course of 5 years on an average – if this was the amount spent on an automobile or an apartment, we would check for the right engine work, fixtures and plumbing. Think of it as something similar to that. We have seen various sparks rise from different sources demanding for a grievance cell to be set up by the BCI – but you can either wait for the formal process to run its due course – or take a stand immediately. Someone has to..B&B: What do you think the response of various college administrations will be?.RM: I couldn’t care less about their responses at the moment. But I need them to be aware of GrayCheck – they need to know, and be assured that this confined regime that they have been running within the boundaries of their campuses has been pierced. What previously had no outlet, no mechanism to be redressed outside the campus – does today..Filing petitions, verifying facts, preserving anonymity and court appearances can be a lot of work – and frankly, I would love nothing more than to avoid this. But that’s not the point here – the point is, that administrations need to know that we can. That one anonymous voice can