Kerala sets aside plans for law university

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, DEC 7: With the State Government returning uncashed a draft for Rs 1.5 crore from jurist K K Venugopal for the proposed M K Nambiar Memorial University of Legal Sciences, the chances of Kerala housing an internationally renowned legal study centre now appear bleak.

Venugopal has been approached by other states with alternative offers of land and facilities for setting up what has been conceived as a centre of excellence in law, to be brought on a par with the Harvard Law School or Cambridge. Venugopal had reportedly got internationally renowned jurists and professors to agree to be on the faculty of the residential university. In February this year, Venugopal handed over the draft to Chief Secretary C P Nair after discussions with Chief Minister E K Nayanar and high-ranking officials. A committee of secretaries besides Advocate-General M K Damodaran finalised the proposal and left it for the Government to ratify. The file has melted into the vast heap in the Secretariat. Obviously, neither the Cabinet nor the LDF has deemed it a priority. It was this which led to the Rs 1.5 crore draft getting dated, forcing its return. The centre would have formed a chain five such universities planned by the Bar Council of India Trust to introduce competitive and innovative curriculum in the context of challenges thrown up by the new world order of WTO, intellectual property rights, information technology and environmental issues.

N R Madhav Menon, who founded the National Law School of India University at Bangalore, said the programme was to offer joint degrees, for instance, in business administration and law and other such combinations, that would place it far ahead of conventional law schools.

For instance, the country has very few experts in maritime and shipping law, and whenever there is a dispute, the concerned parties make a bee-line for foreign lawyers. Legal inadequacies, so far restricted to sectors like maritime and shipping, are already being felt in software law and international trade in the context of globalisation. The university has proposed to start courses in these disciplines which no other law school in the country currently offers.