Supreme Court upholds Bombay HC dismissal of plea against student intake cuts in Maharashtra law colleges

The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed a petition challenging the University of Mumbai’s decision to halve the intake of students in affiliated law colleges.

The petition was filed by Lawyers’ Foundation, whose similar plea challenging the halving of student intake capacity in law colleges was dismissed by the Bombay High Court in July with costs of ₹1 lakh.

A Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V Mohana today upheld the dismissal, but set aside the costs.

The High Court had observed that the plea appeared to be a proxy litigation on behalf of an affected college. Today, the top court set aside the costs after the petitioner said that they would not file such frivolous petitions in the future.

"In view of the assurance made by the petitioner that they won’t be engaged in filing such frivolous petition, we take a lenient view” and modify the Bombay High Court order to the extent of the ₹1 lakh costs imposed. Consequently, SLP is dismissed and order as to cost set aside," the Court said.

The petitioner had challenged the decision of Mumbai University to reduce 50% seats in 3-year and 5-year LLB courses in around 45 colleges for the 2026–27 academic year.

However, the High Court had questioned how the petitioner had obtained the information mentioned in the plea, including certain confidential details related to a college. The Court had said that the University appeared to have taken a lenient stand, as it noticed that one of the law colleges - Rizvi College of Law - was operating without any faculty.

The Court had also noted that the petition filed by Lawyers' Foundation appeared to have been filed on behalf of Rizvi Law College to challenge the varsity's order against the college.

[Read live account of hearing]