NUSRL to move to new campus premises in December this year; Dr Shweta Mohan appointed as Acting Vice Chancellor

Following the end of Prof. AK Koul’s tenure as the Vice Chancellor of the National University of Study and Research in Ranchi (NUSRL), Dr. Shweta Mohan has been appointed as the institute’s Acting Vice Chancellor. Dr. Mohan, an Assistant Professor at NUSRL, has a Masters in Economics and has a PhD from the Chanakya National Law University in Patna..Speaking to Bar & Bench, Dr. Mohan said that the institute is scheduled to move to the new campus in December this year, “provided all goes well”. In September last year, the Jharkhand High Court disposed of a PIL filed against the delays in constructing a campus for NUSRL, directing the State government to approve the construction within two weeks. At present, NUSRL continues to function out of the BIT Polytechnic campus..On the topic of regulatory approvals (both of the BCI and the UGC), Dr. Mohan said that these questions would be best answered by the new Vice Chancellor. “We are a young institute”, says Dr. Mohan, “and we are all trying our best.”.Dr. Mohan also said that the appointment of the new Vice Chancellor, says Dr. Mohan, shall be made soon after the Jharkhand High Court receives its new Chief Justice, Justice R. Banumathi from the Madras High Court. The Chief Justice is the ex-officio Chancellor of the institute..NUSRL, the most expensive of the existing fourteen CLAT law schools, is not the only law school that is facing issues of inadequate infrastructure, limited faculty etc. For instance, the NLSJA in Guwahati too continues to function out of a makeshift campus. The national law school in Tamil Nadu, recently called for applications for six faculty positions, barely a month before it started admitting students for the first time in August this year. Nor is this problem limited to the newer law schools. In Kolkata, the NUJS girls’ hostel is currently suffering from a lack of space, with students currently being housed in what used to be the hostel mess.