Mumbai, November 11: Dean and Head of the Department of Law, University of Mumbai, Dr Vijay Chitnis, has taken strong exception to the Bar Council of India resoluton directing closure of evening law colleges in the state. These colleges, which have been told to shut or switch to day colleges from June 2000, have been directed to close down as the bar council feels they are unable to effectively implement the new syllabus introduced in the current academic year.Dr Chitnis told Express Newsline that he will convene a meeting of principals by next week to discuss the issue. There are eight law colleges affiliated to the University of Mumbai. Except for the Government Law College, the others offer part-time degree courses. They are also run classes in the evenings only.Under the new curriculum, there are nine subjects per year, of which one offers practical training. This means students will have to visit the courts, stage mock trials and other similar exercises. However, Dr Chitnis says, switching to day classes will entail two difficulties. For one, most of them run classes in buildings which hold other classes during the day as well. Second, recruiting teachers will be even more difficult as most teachers are practising lawyers.
