On Tuesday, the Supreme Court admonished the Bar Council of India (BCI) for its undue interference in the academic operations of law colleges, emphasizing that such responsibilities should be handled by academic experts, not the legal regulatory body.
During a session that addressed multiple petitions against the BCI’s 2021 decision to eliminate the one-year LLM program and disrecognize foreign LLM degrees, the bench, comprising Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh, questioned the BCI’s role in dictating educational content.
“Why are you interfering in academic affairs? Shouldn’t academic experts handle the curriculum of law colleges?” Justice Kant remarked, highlighting the BCI’s primary duty to enhance the professional knowledge and training of the country’s legal practitioners, which numbers nearly one million.
The court also criticized the BCI for overstepping its bounds by dictating educational standards that should be entrusted to academicians. “You have imposed yourself, claiming to be the only authority in this country,” the bench stated, in response to senior advocate Vivek Tankha’s defense of the BCI’s traditional role.
Tankha disclosed that a committee led by a former Chief Justice of India was established to evaluate and suggest a framework for equalizing one-year and two-year LLM degrees, yet the court remained unimpressed with the quality of judicial officers emerging from the current educational structure.
“What kind of officers are we getting? Are they properly sensitized? Do they understand the ground realities or just deliver mechanical judgments?” the bench inquired, stressing the judiciary’s vested interest as a primary stakeholder in legal education.
The bench suggested that academicians should address these issues, advising the BCI to concentrate on its statutory responsibilities like organizing training focused on the art of drafting and understanding case laws.
Senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, representing the Consortium of National Law Universities, accused the BCI of overreaching by attempting to regulate not only LLM degrees but also PhDs and diplomas. “The BCI’s purpose was to regulate entry into the legal profession, not micromanage academic credentials,” Singhvi argued.
