Notice to IIT Kharagpur for unauthorised LL.M. degrees was based on typo: BCI

The Bar Council of India (BCI) has revealed in a Right to Information (RTI) response that its notice to Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur for giving unauthorised LL.M. degrees was the result of a typographical error.

The advisory was intended for the MSc in Cybersecurity and Cyber Law programme offered by IIT Indore, the legal education regulator clarified.

The response to the RTI query filed by Advocate Vinay Kumar Yadav reads,

"With regards to your online RTI, it is to inform that due to typographical error, in the paragraph 24 of the letter dated 25.6.2025 the name of the institute was wrongly typed as Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur instead of Indian Institute of Technology, Indore and the show cause notice was issued to IIT, Indore and not the IIT, Kharagpur. This is for your information."

The BCI had recently issued a directive flagging the problem of 'unauthorised and misleading' legal education programmes that are being offered in non-compliance with the Bar Council's Legal Education Rules, 2008 and 2020.

Apart from IIT Kharagpur, the institutes on the BCI's radar were National Law Institute University (NLIU), Bhopal; OP Jindal Global University (JGU), Sonipat; and National Law University, Delhi (NLU Delhi).

"These institutions frequently insert vague statements indicating that the course is not equivalent to the BCI-recognized LLM., while simultaneously and prominently using the nomenclature "LL.M." in their brochures, advertisements, and academic materials," the statement reads.