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Analysis of National Law Universities in India

ANALYSIS OF NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITIES IN INDIA
- Sankalpita Pal, Symbiosis Law School, Pune

Introduction

It is no surprise that National Law Universities are the most preferred colleges for Legal Education. There are about 23 National Law Universities in India. NLUs are affiliated to the Bar Council of India (BCI) and are well recognized by the University Grants Commission (UGC).

The National Law School of India University, Bangalore was the first NLU to be established in the year 1986. This fact evidently shows that India took notice for the need of legal education way after the post British era.  NLSIU has remained at its best ever since. It was established under the National Law School of India Act, 1986. Motivated by the same many other State Legislative Assemblies also established the other 22 national law schools around India. 

Status of National Law Universities and Grant under UGC
Section 3 UGC Act, 1956- Application of Act to institutions for higher studies other than Universities. According to this section Institutions can only be established by central government or by the state governments and in order to be deemed as a university it has to be declared so under the UGC Act. 

However, it is interesting to note that NLUs have been founded by respective State governments. Owing to their “National” status, it is a common perception. However, NLUs are actually State level law universities. Therefore, every National law university is a UGC recognized and affiliated State University. 

The above fact brings us to the next one that these universities rely on grants given by the State governments. This causal factor would explain as to why law schools are so expensive, as they need to look out for their own funds. IITs on the other hand receive funds from the Central Government. Isn’t this a point to ponder upon?

One of the more important aspects that impact the fee structure of these universities is that Chief Justices of respective High Courts hold an honourary position as University’s Chancellor. It would be a common and obvious perception that the NLUs would be supervised by the department of higher education, however, NLUs are under the auspices of the law and justice department under the State government. 

Changing Preferences

After CLAT 2019 NLUs witnessed a shift in preference and ranks. The most significant replacement being the fact that National Law University, Jodhpur (NLUJ) overtook National Law Institute University, Bhopal (NLIU). Even RGNUL, Patiala and NUALS Kochi were overtaken by National Law University Odisha (NLUO). CLAT 2020 id yet to take place and more such interesting positional changes are expected this year. 

The position of NLSIU Bangalore, NALSAR Hyderabad and NUJS Kolkata has remained undisputed and unchanged as of 2019. It is a known fact that NLSIU Bangalore has cemented its position through impeccable performance over the years.

It is interesting to note that according to CLAT 2019 stats NLU Jodhpur were more preferred by CLAT candidates. GNLU Gandhinagar remains in 6th position. HNLU Raipur made a comeback to its original rank from 2017 and is also ahead of MNLU, Mumbai. CNLU Patna unfortunately still maintains its 13th position whereas NUSRL Ranchi improved from its original rank to the 14th position.

Ranks become ambiguous with regard to position of different NLUs post the 15th rank up till the 21st rank.  MNLU Nagpur has a borderline rank and has slightly better stats than DSNLU Visakhapatnam is closely followed by NLUJA Assam and TNNLU Tiruchirappalli. HPNLU Shimla unfortunately couldn’t be on the candidate’s reasonable preferances except for a few local candidates. The newer university, MNLU Aurangabad is just ahead of Dharmashastra National Law University, Jabalpur. It is interesting to note that, currently there are 3 National Law Universities in Maharashtra. NLU, Delhi is out of this race as it has its own entrance test. However,  in comparison NLUD is one of the top Law universities.

Web Presence of different NLUs

Web presence in this article refers to whether universities utilize e-resources and provide their students with e-library or not. For example a few private law universities provide open access to legitimate legal databases such as SCC online and Manupatra along with SAGE and JSTOR etc. it is important for students pursuing legal education to have access to such portals and their vast resources. This ease of access will help them gain better knowledge and research skills. 

An analysis of a lot of web portals and content analysis done by various statisticians and professionals reveal that National law universities in India generally have a very poor Web Presence. Even though most universities have a legitimate website domain, some NLUs don’t really have a web-identity. In recent years web portals containing a vast variety of e-resources has evolved its identity to being one of the most magnanimous interactive platforms that knows no bounds and even defeats geographical barriers. 
Therefore, it is a reasonable expectation that the NLUs in India need to up their game and become more polished and pay attention to structuring their web-identity. 
According to a research conducted in 2018 by Digital Commons@University of Nebraska , Lincoln under University of Nebraska, Lincoln, National Law University, Odisha ranks the topmost among all the universities in India even overtaking NLSIU Bangalore, WBNUJS  Kolkata, NALSAR Hyderabad, and RMLNLU Lucknow.

Recommendations 

Maintaining a Web-identity is very important for national law universities  in India however it is still a neglected domain. A strong Web-identity is an infrastructural boon. National law universities in India need to portray more web presence like other institutions. This way their global identity would evolve and improve their status in the area of legal education. 

This is not an impossible task with the awareness and training programme around nowadays designing and developing proper and functional web portals is not difficult. This unfortunate state of being is probably owing to the fact that NLUs don’t actually receive financial support from their respective State Governments. Government of. India has taken initiatives to create a common portal like ‘Law & Justice, National Portal of India’ and. “Central university portal”  in order to create a common platform to condition a meet amongst server, storage and network needs for creating the web-identity of national law universities in India. Yet such initiatives are failing to cater to their purpose due to the lack of interest shown by the State governments. This once again is a problem that can be cured through cooperation and better administration.

ProBono work by NLUs

Another important aspect that most NLUs are presently working on is that they are taking initiatives to involve their students into ProBono legal services. Following the footsteps of Harvard Law School’s Pro bono Programme, many NLUs are trying to ignite passion for community service and are taking well appreciated steps to achieve the same. 

For example- NLUD has a Legal Services Committee and provide help to the needy litigants. They provide free contact information of free legal counsels. This initiative was to make their students aware and face challenges regarding Pro bono work. NLSIU also have a Legal Services Clinic. Similarly, GNLU also launched the GNLU Pro Bono Legal Aid Programme. The success of these Legal aid camps and committees set up by the NLUs is not really known. Most of the time law students don’t participate in such committees rendering their purpose redundant and defeated. 

The success of GNLU’s Legal aid Programme is the most significant. Gujarat National Law University (GNLU) situated at Gandhinagar, Gujarat requires 20 hours of Pro Bono legal aid work in an academic year which comes to a total of 100 hours in a five years course. Mandatory legal aid work assures participation of students and brings out the best results. The other NLUs should also follow a similar pattern in order to succeed. Providing good legal education is one thing but producing ethical lawyers is a duty and responsibility that the NLUs need to take up. Pro bono services can be a big help to the community and will lead to ethical cleansing of mindsets of students who think otherwise.


REFERENCES
1. Soumya Singh Tomar, Mohammed Imtiaz Ahmed, Amarjit Kumar Singh ‘Content analysis of Web presence of National Law University libraries in India’ (2018), <https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4912&context=libphilprac> accessed 14th April, 2020.
2. Dr. Kalpeshkumar L Gupta, Case Study on Pro Bono Legal Aid Programme of Gujarat National Law University, Gandhinagar (August 5, 2017) accessed 14th April, 2020.
3. Elgohary, Amgad, ‘Arab universities on the web: a webometrics study. The Electronic Library’.(2008), 26 (3): 374-386.