National in name, provincial in structure: Why India’s NLUs must become INIs

The nearly four-decade history of the National Law Universities (NLUs) in India is often framed as a revolution in legal pedagogy. Since the inception of the first NLU in 1986, these institutions have successfully reshaped the landscape of legal practice by producing high-calibre corporate attorneys and a burgeoning presence in the litigating Bar.

They were designed to be the 'IITs of Law,' centres of excellence that would attract the finest minds to a profession that was previously seen as a fallback option. However, beneath the prestige and the high placement statistics lies a deep-seated structural crisis that threatens to hollow out these institutions from within.

The fundamental problem is a contradiction in their very identity. While these universities were conceived to serve a national mandate and bear the 'National' tag, they were born through state legislation. This provincial grounding has created a disconnect where the Central government views them as state subjects and state governments view them as self-funding entities.

We expect these universities to function as world-class centres of excellence, yet we leave them to struggle under the administrative and financial models of local state colleges. Without a fundamental shift in how these universities are governed and funded, the NLU model faces the risk of gradual decline into mediocrity.

The shift in Indian legal education was not an accident but a calculated response to a crisis. It was largely prompted by the 14th Law Commission Report, which remains one of the most scathing critiques of legal training in India. The Commission famously warned that the mediocre and part-time nature of law colleges at the time was a threat to the operation of a constitutional democracy. It noted that the legal profession was failing to attract the 'best brains' because the education system was stagnant, theoretical and disconnected from the realities of the courtroom.

The pioneering effort by Prof NR Madhava Menon to create the five-year integrated law degree was meant to rectify this. By merging law with social sciences and introducing clinical legal education, the 'Menon Model' succeeded in attracting talented students immediately after high school. However, as the success of NLSIU Bengaluru prompted other states to replicate the model, the replication was structural rather than substantive.

Because these subsequent universities were created by State Acts, they remained tethered to the fiscal priorities and political shifts of state governments rather than being nurtured as federal assets. The 'National' prefix became a brand name rather than a legal status, leaving the universities in a legislative limbo.

One of the most significant burdens on the NLU system is its financial architecture. Unlike the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs, or the All- India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), NLUs do not receive substantial and recurring block grants from the Union government. Instead, they operate on a precarious self-sustaining model.

Most state governments provide little more than the initial land and a one-time grant for construction. Once the gates open, the recurring expenditure, which includes everything from faculty salaries and library subscriptions to electricity bills and campus maintenance, is funded almost entirely through student tuition.

This has led to a steep and unsustainable inflationary curve. A five-year degree at a premier NLU now costs between ₹15 lakh and ₹25 lakh. This financial strain is not limited to the years of study but extends even to the entry point of the profession. Due to the non-availability of Central funds to manage the testing infrastructure, the CLAT Consortium is forced to charge exorbitant application and counselling fees. These costs act as a gatekeeper, effectively preventing talented students from poor and middle-class backgrounds from even attempting the examination. This essentially privatises what should be a public service, making the pursuit of law at a premier level a privilege reserved for the economic elite. When the 'National' law university becomes unaffordable for the average Indian citizen, it fails its constitutional purpose of democratising legal education.

The national character of these universities is further diluted by the aggressive expansion of domicile reservations. While institutions like the National Institutes of Technology (NITs) maintain a 50% state quota, the NLU system has seen states push these boundaries much further. In states like Maharashtra, the cumulative effect of various vertical and horizontal reservation categories means that domicile-based seats are now around 70%.

This trend is a direct consequence of the universities being state-funded. Local politicians, seeking to maximise benefits for their own constituents, view NLUs as state assets rather than national ones. However, when nearly three-fourths of a 'National' university’s intake is restricted to a single state, the very essence of the institution is lost. Legal education thrives on the diversity of perspective. The peer-to-peer learning that occurs in a pan-India classroom, where a student from Tamil Nadu debates a student from Punjab, is foundational to developing a holistic understanding of the law. Replacing this diversity with regional homogeneity removes the national character these universities were promised to uphold and turns them into provincial colleges with a fancy name.

The structural flaws of the NLU model have recently culminated in a series of crises across various campuses. These are not isolated incidents of student 'indiscipline' but are direct symptoms of poor funding, administrative neglect and a lack of central oversight. In late 2024 and 2025, students at MNLU Mumbai were forced to protest against hazardous living conditions. Reports from the ground highlighted frequent electrical short circuits, faulty wiring in hostels and unhygienic facilities that posed a genuine threat to student safety.

Similarly, students at NLU Odisha and NLU Assam have launched agitations demanding basic academic and placement reforms. These protests are a manifestation of a system pushed to its limit. When universities are starved of funds, they cannot maintain safe campuses, they cannot afford to hire the required number of permanent faculty and they cannot invest in the research infrastructure necessary for modern legal scholarship. The administrative instability in many newer NLUs, characterised by frequent changes in leadership and a lack of long-term vision, is a direct result of being dependent on state-level bureaucracy.

The current state-university framework has proven itself incapable of sustaining the rigour and excellence required for legal education in the 21st century. The only viable solution is for parliament to intervene through a Central law. There have been several attempts to address this in the legislature, most notably through this Private Member Bill, which seeks to declare NLUs as Institutes of National Importance (INI).

Granting NLUs INI status through a Central National Law Universities Act is a structural necessity that would address the core of the crisis. Firstly, it would ensure central funding, providing the financial stability required to lower tuition fees and eliminate the high entry costs of the CLAT exam. Secondly, it would lead to enhanced research capabilities. The INI status would unlock federal research grants, allowing NLUs to move beyond being just teaching shops and instead become hubs for legal innovation and the advancement of legal education.

Thirdly, it would unify standards by creating a central governing council to ensure uniform academic quality and faculty appointments across the country. Finally, it would rationalise reservations by implementing a balanced national policy that protects regional interests without sacrificing the national merit pool.

The National Law Universities were established with a transformative vision to produce the guardians of our constitutional values. However, as long as they remain national in name but provincial in structure, they will continue to buckle under the weight of financial instability and regional politics. The promises of 1986 cannot be fulfilled by the fractured framework of 2026. Parliament must move beyond incremental fixes and provide a unified central framework.

Transforming NLUs into Institutes of National Importance is not merely an administrative upgrade but a commitment to ensuring that the advancement of legal education in India is no longer determined by state boundaries or economic status. It is time to make the 'National' in NLU a reality.

Adari Jaswanth is a second year law student at Damodaram Sanjivayya National Law University (DSNLU), Visakhapatnam.