With a view to imposing stricter standards for legal education in the country, the Bar Council of India (BCI) has requested all State-run universities to fill up vacant faculty positions within a period of three months..A notification issued today in this regard notes,"In 80 per cent of Government Institutions, more than 50 percent seats of teachers are vacant. The State Governments are not showing any interest in filling up the vacancies. This is a matter of serious concern.".All new law teachers are required to acquire proper training, failing which they would not be allowed to teach in any law college..The BCI notice also touches upon the issue of "mushrooming of law colleges" in the country, and enumerates the steps it had taken to curb the "casual" grant of permission to open law colleges..In August 2019, it had imposed a three-year moratorium on the opening of new law colleges and centres of legal education. The notice details how the Council stuck to its guns despite receiving a flood of requests to do away with the moratorium..Reference was also made to a 2020 Punjab & Haryana High Court order which set aside the moratorium for being violative of Article 19(1)(g) of the Constitution of India."The Bar Council of India has filed an LPA against the above referred order dated 04.12.2021, but it realizes that it would be feasible and better if a Committee is appointed to consider drafting of Rules for moratorium which thereafter can be placed before the Legal Education Committee which has a statutory sanction under section 10(2)(b) of the Advocates Act, as was observed by the Punjab and Haryana High Court," BCI stated, revealing its intention to withdraw the appeal..The Council has also resolved to undertake surprise visits of law colleges, which it acknowledged may not be workable presently till the pandemic situation improves..As far as applications for new colleges are concerned, BCI has requested state governments to be very diligent before granting NOCs. It has warned,"Furthermore, The Universities are requested to carry out inspection and scrutiny of the Institutions in a meticulous manner, and, only thereafter, consider to grant, affiliation, otherwise, Bar Council of India would seriously consider to de -recognise the degrees being issued by such University/ies. The Bar Council of India is not going to compromise with the standard of Legal Education and the Universities are advised to affiliate Law Colleges only with better infrastructure to compete with international standards. Mushrooming of Law Colleges has to be stopped at any costs.".[Read Notification]
