No three-year law college in Ahmedabad has requisite faculty strength: survey

Besides,three of the colleges have only one faculty; in essence they “were run by only one person – serving as the peon to the in-charge principal,” the survey by the city-based Research Foundation for Governance in India (RFGI) revealed.

According to BCI guidelines,law colleges should have a minimum of at least four full-time faculty for first-year,six for second-year and eight for third-year classes.

Under Part IV,Schedule 3,Number 17 of the BCI rules,any college which does not meet this faculty strength will remain suspended until new required faculty is appointed.

Kanan Dhru,founder director of RFGI,termed the survey’s findings “extremely serious” as roughly nine of every 10 lawyers practising litigation are those who obtain their law degrees from such three-year law colleges.

His father,Amal a chartered accountant in his mid-fifties,who enrolled himself in one such college this July,said: “These colleges claim to churn out lawyers of tomorrow but they are barely suited to meet even the limited needs of someone like myself.”

A student from one such college said on condition of anonymity that they are not given required readings; lectures are hardly taken and even when they are conducted,it becomes a tedious job for the staff because of time and personnel constraints.

The RFGI survey further said: “Colleges are finding it impossible to arrange lectures and classes on a regular basis. The classes are held only with the help of visiting faculty (mostly practising lawyers) who are paid Rs 75 to Rs 100 per lecture. Many of the visiting teachers take the classes out of personal favours to the principals or the management.”

Girish Patel,senior counsel at the Gujarat High Court and former principal of the Maneklal Nanavati Law College between 1964 and 1972,said there are a number of problems with such colleges.

“The teaching is hopeless,students don’t read textbooks,they hardly read even the bare acts,and don’t attend lectures. They almost totally depend on guides,” Patel said.

What BCI rules stipulate
Besides the faculty strength for each class,BCI rules also stipulate the number of students in each class,which should be 60 – meaning one full-time faculty will teach 60 law students.

But the Government of Gujarat has the same rules for law colleges as commerce colleges,whereby the strength of one class should be 130-170 students. This means that the state government,which appoints and pays the law college staff,appoints a new teacher only when the law colleges have at least 130 students in one class.

In other words,while the law colleges function under the BCI rules,they cannot have new faculty even when required because the state government appoints them only when they meet its student-strength criteria.But under the University Grants Act of 1956,UGC grants are given to colleges that have five full-time faculties (a principal and five faculty). As such,the three-year law colleges do receive UGC grants because the state government does not appoint enough staff. Consequently,the colleges too cannot appoint faculty on their own because they do not receive grants.