NLSIU agrees to reserve 10 additional seats for Karnataka students in exchange for more land

The additional 10 seats will be reserved from the upcoming academic year.

The decision also comes after the syndicate meeting of Bangalore University (BU) on September 20, that convened to address key issues surrounding the allocation of land and reservation policies for Karnataka students. During the meeting it was proposed to allot an additional seven acres of land to the NLSIU and a suggested 50 per cent reservation for Karnataka students in admissions. However, after opposition from the government, Bangalore University withdrew its clause and left the decision on reservation to the discretion of the state government.

Sudhakar, speaking to indianexpress.com, said, “The NLSIU is currently reserving 25 per cent of the seats to Karnataka students horizontally. When the university came to the state government for additional land space within the BU, as part of their expansion plans, we strongly pitched for giving additional seats to Karnataka students in return.”

He added, “We had initially requested 15 seats, but the university argued that its reservation for domicile students never crosses 25 per cent in any law school. Then they settled for 10 seats under the supernumerary quota for Karnataka students, which is a special clause. Meanwhile, they had asked for 16 acre of land in the BU campus, but we settled for seven only.”

Following the agreement, the NLSIU passed the proposal of giving additional seats through the executive council, following which it was approved by the governing council of the university. The government has allotted seven acre of land in the Jnanbharati campus of the BU to the NLSIU for a period of 30 years on a lease rent basis at Rs 50,000 per acre per annum. Currently, the NLSIU is functioning in a 23-acre campus inside the BU campus.

Since 2021, under the NLSIU’s compartmentalized horizontal reservation for Karnataka students, 60 in BA LLB (hons) and 25 in LLM and 30 in LLB (Hons) have been given seats in the academic year 2023-24.

Sudhakar also stated that the government will continue to fight the case in the Supreme Court in connection with the striking down of the vertical reservation bill of the state government by the Karnataka High Court.

As part of the inclusion programme, the institution increased the total student intake for both undergraduate and postgraduate law programmes every year and also reserved 25 per cent of seats horizontally (compartmentalized) for Karnataka students across different vertical categories.

However, the state government and advocates associations had argued that the NLSIU “deceptively” merged the students who qualify under the All India Quota and those who gain admission under the domicile reservation category, thus restricting the percentage of students from Karnataka who may gain admission into the NLSIU to a maximum of 25 per cent.

They argued that the admissions through the All India Rank must be construed as one under the All India Quota and not as part of the domiciled seats reserved for students who are domiciled in Karnataka and have not obtained their seat through their All India Rank.