DU’s Asst Prof files PIL against BCI, Delhi Bar Council; Seeks 5 lacs payment for every student unfairly denied enrolment [READ petition]

An assistant professor at Delhi University’s Law Faculty, Vijay Kumar Chaurasia, has initiated legal proceedings against the Bar Council of India and the Delhi Bar Council. The assistant professor has filed a PIL before the Delhi High Court against a recent directive of the Bar Council of India (BCI) prohibiting state bar councils from enrolling those who had graduated from DU this year. Last week, a bench of Chief Justice Rohini and Justice Endlaw issued notice in the matter and posted it for November 5, 2014 for further hearing.

Speaking to Bar & Bench, Chaurasia says that the BCI directive is “completely arbitrary” and is also retrospective in nature. And as per the BCI’s own Rules of Legal Education, a BCI approval can only be withdrawn after an adverse finding by the BCI’s inspection committee. The petition reads,

That [the BCI] cannot revoke the approval of affiliation of all Law Centres, University of Delhi without an adverse report of inspection. In the above case the [BCI] has revoked the approval of affiliation only on the ground that Law Centres, University of Delhi, did not comply with the Order issued by [the BCI].

In this case, there has been no inspection committee and hence, no adverse report.

At the same time, Chaurasia says the university too is at fault; after all, the BCI had informed the university of the entire affiliation process more than four years ago. The “Order” referred to in the petition relates to a BCI letter asking all law schools to report their compliance with the Rules by July 15, 2010.

According to sources with the Law Faculty, the application forms for affiliation have been submitted to the BCI and it is only a matter of time before the entire issue is sorted out. The BCI, on its part, is claiming that once the application fees have been submitted, amounting to one lac per Law Centre, only then will the inspection take place.

What complicates matters is that in between the university and an “arbitrary” BCI, lie the recently graduated lawyers, who have been denied the chance to enroll. In his PIL, Chaurasia has also asked a compensation of five lacs each to be paid to those students whose enrolment has been stayed.

He says that it is the BCI and the university that are to be held responsible for the current situation, not the students. And it is a fight that Chaurasia is determined to continue.

“I am under a lot of pressure from within the University. I am ready to resign but I will not stop fighting for what is right and what is legal.”

According to Chaurasia, criminal proceedings have been initiated against Dean Ashwani Bansal, as well as the university’s registrar. Although unable to provide details of this matter, Chaurasia did say that the matter is expected to come up in Tiz Hizari court in the course of the week.
Corrigendum: This article initially attributed the criminal proceedings to VK Chaurasia. However, Chaurasia is in no way related to the said proceedings. The error is regretted.