“Decision regarding DU LL.B. seats should be made afresh”, Delhi HC to BCI

The Delhi High Court today directed the Bar Council of India’s Legal Education Committee to submit the findings of its inspection report of Delhi University’s Faculty of Law by June 24..On Friday, a BCI team carried out the inspection of the Faculty of Law to determine whether it has the requisite capacity to accommodate 2310 students in its law course. The report was placed before the court in a sealed cover..The team consisted of former Patna High Court judge Justice VN Sinha, former Uttarakhand High Court judge Justice Rajesh Tandon, Vice-Chancellor of NLIU Bhopal Prof SS Singh, Vice-Chancellor of HNLU Raipur Prof Sukh Pal Singh, BCI Joint Secretary Ashok Kumar Pandey, Assistant Secretary of BCI’s Legal Education Department N Senthil Kumar and Dinesh Pathak, Member BCI..In the last hearing, Dean of the Law Faculty Prof. Ved Kumari had submitted that the Faculty had already paid Rs. 11.5 lakh to the BCI for inspection in January 2017, but the same had not been carried out as yet..Counsel for the BCI Preet Pal Singh stated that the inspection report will now be placed before the Legal Education Committee of the BCI and it will take a call as to whether the varsity can be allowed to admit 2310 students in its law course. He further stated that the deliberations will take place on June 17, 18 and 19..The Bench of Justices S Murlidhar and C Hari Shankar also directed the BCI to take the decision on the representation made by the University against reduction of seats in a fresh manner without relying on any previous orders..Speaking to the press, Prof Kumari stated that she is optimistic about the findings of the Legal Education Committee..“We feel that the inspection team was quite happy with what they saw.”.The matter was first brought to the Court’s notice through a public interest litigation filed by Advocate Joginder Kumar Sukhija. He claimed that the decision to reduce the LL.B. seats in DU would adversely affect a large number of aspirants and that DU and Faculty of Law were public funded educational institutions receiving grants from the University Grants Commission. By reducing the number of admissions, he argued, public money was not being put to optimum use..The BCI, while rejecting the representation of the petitioner vide its letter dated June 7, had accused the petitioner of being guilty of professional misconduct as he did not disclose that he had appeared as a counsel in another similar writ petition seeking several reliefs which were eventually not granted by the court..After Sukhija stated that these are intimidating tactics employed by the BCI, the Court today observed that the BCI should not have made such statements regarding the petitioner and that the other matter was on a different footing altogether..The BCI counsel conceded by saying that such statements should not have been made and that the BCI would be careful in the future..The matter will be next heard on June 27.