Madras High Court expresses concerns over legal education standards

Deepali Kalia

Madras High Court on June 18th urged the Bar Council of India (BCI) to seriously consider issues related to the quality of law graduates and legal education.

“For the sake of the dignity of what you and I wear, I think you (BCI) should look into it more seriously, not as a professional matter, and try to deal with the malaise. It’s no longer respectful to introduce yourself as a lawyer or judge anymore.”, Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee remarked.

A Bench comprising of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice R Subbiah was hearing a petition which was filed last year against distance education courses in law offered by Annamalai University.

“Today we have how many – more than 3 lakh lawyers graduating every year? So what happens? They discredit the profession. There are orders passed by this Court on how votes are acquired by office bearers (of Bar Associations) something must be done at all-India level. You sir, can you put your hand to your heart and say that we have qualified teachers to provide training in these 1,600 colleges?”, Chief Justice Banerjee asked the BCI counsel.

 Chief Justice Banerjee stated that the issue is not restricted to particular states. He stated that even if highest standards of legal education are maintained by one State, a person can still obtain degree of law of inferior standard from a neighboring State.

The entire effort of raising the standard in the State is lost., the Chief Justice commented.

Advocate SR Raghunathan, who appeared for BCI agreed with the concerns raised by the Chief Justice and said that while the regulatory body was already taking steps to tackle the issues, he will communicate the Court’s concerns to the body.

The Court then adjourned the case by 3 weeks and stated that once normal Court functioning returns, We’ll take up the larger issue, someone has to take it up.”

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