Umamageswari Maruthappan
The scrapping of the one-year LL.M course has aroused widespread condemnations across the country which has now reached its extremity that the matter has knocked the doors of the Supreme Court.
The petitioner is a final year law student who is currently preparing for LLM Entrance, had alleged that the BCI’s new notification replacing one-year LLM course to two years is violative of Articles 14 (Right to Equality), 19(1)(g) (Freedom of profession) and Article 21 (Right to life and personal liberty) provided under the Constitution of India.
The petition stated the benefits of the one-year LLM Program that includes setting up of a Centre for Post Graduate Legal Studies (CPGLS) which consists of a team to give quality guidance to students including those engaged in Ph.D.
Further, it also explained that lesser terms of the course would attract many including working professionals to pursue the course without much compromise.
The petition also questioned the authority of BCI to make rules with respect to higher legal education. It stated that though the regulatory body had been conferred with some relevant powers under section 7 of the Advocates Act, 1961, the same doesn’t empower BCI to regulate higher education in law.
The petition cited the observations in Gopal Krishan Chatrath vs BCI (2001) in which case it was held that:
“The perusal of Section 7(1)(h) and Section 49(1)(d) definitely leads us to a conclusion that for promoting legal education and for laying down the standards of legal education, the Universities in India and the State Bar Councils were required to be consulted and that the said consultation had to be effective consultation because the Universities are engaged in imparting the legal education.”
The petition further stated that the Advocates Act, 1961 also does not empower BCI to make any rules and issue notifications and therefore the same should be held as “ultravires” and its implementation should be restrained “till the end of academic session of 2021-2022 of one-year LL.M course.”
The new Bar Council of India Legal Education (PostGraduate, Doctoral, Executive, Vocational, Clinical and other Continuing Education) Rules, 2020 was released on 2nd January 2021 which sought to abolish the one-year LLM Program which was introduced by the University Grants Commission (UGC) in 2013.