Bar Council: ‘Check criminal background of aspiring law students'

Bar Council of India has directed law colleges, universities to collect an undertaking from students about their criminal past

The Bar Council of India wants law colleges to check the backgrounds of students aspiring for legal studies to check for criminal antecedents. In the wake of a PIL before the Bombay High Court seeking to make attendance compulsory for students in law colleges, BCI has issued a slew of guidelines to law colleges and universities.

The BCI circular envisages introducing several new measures aimed at fostering transparency and ethical standards in law colleges. In addition to checking background of aspiring students, BCI also wants law colleges to ensure students make declarations regarding simultaneous degree and/or regular academic programmes, employment status and attendance compliance. Besides, the law colleges have to make use of biometric systems for attendance and install CCTV cameras, etc. This circular is being seen as a knee-jerk reaction by BCI in response to a writ petition filed by a law associate professor in HC. 

In favour

U K Nambiar, principal of MCT Law College, Airoli, welcomed the directives issued by BCI. Nambiar said that this would bring in the much-needed transparency in both students enrolling for legal education and also private law colleges mushrooming today. To ensure adherence of the circular is done in its true spirit BCI should conduct surprise checks. BCI should come up with a professional curriculum for five-year LLB courses, with mandatory one year practical courses, at par with medicine, pharmacology engineering, etc., and completely do away with the three-year LLB programme, to have quality legal education and continuity of education after HSC.”

Dissenting view

“It is unfair to have expectations from the college principals to check if the student has a criminal background. And moreover, we have instances in the past where convicted accused in terror cases have approached the high court and have sought judicial intervention to appear for a law exam. On the one hand, the judiciary directs the university to allow such convicts to appear for law exams and on the other the judiciary points out that 75 per cent attendance is a must. How can convicts adhere to rules meant for the classroom? Does BCI have a mechanism to check a student’s criminal background?” asked a law professor.

Law faculty’s view

“BCI had issued a recent notification introducing several new regulatory measures aimed at fostering transparency and ethical standards within the legal profession. The implementation of these measures is aimed at upholding the ethical standards of the legal profession by ensuring that law students entering the field maintain the highest standards of honesty and professionalism. Though the move is to promote transparency and accountability, I personally fear that colleges may indulge in corrupt practices and exploit students who do not fit in BCI norms,” said advocate Dhanpal Jain, a visiting law faculty.

Exploitation of students 

Nitin Yadav, president of the Self-Finance College Federation, said, “BCI has issued a circular to make legal education stronger and cleaner. This will ensure transparency and proper quality in legal education. But it cannot be denied that after this order the level of exploitation of students will also increase across the country. It would not be fair to deprive a student of education on account of being booked in an FIR. There are many such cases in the country in which the court has given permission to encourage education even after having a criminal history and such people have also returned to the mainstream society. BCI's move is towards transparency but it also has to be seen that no student or institution is exploited under the guise of this order.” 

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