BCI Orders Universities To Inspect Law Colleges, Directs To Stop Weekend, Evening Classes

The Bar Council of India (BCI) has directed all universities imparting legal education to immediately undertake physical inspections of every constituent and affiliated law college, launching a six-week nationwide compliance exercise to verify infrastructure, faculty strength, teaching standards and the validity of BCI approvals.  

In a circular issued to Vice-Chancellors, Registrars, Deans and Heads of Law Departments, the BCI said universities have a continuing obligation to monitor affiliated law colleges and cannot treat the grant of affiliation as a one-time exercise. It observed that courts have repeatedly criticised universities for granting affiliations without conducting proper inspections or verifying the authenticity of information submitted by law colleges.

The BCI said the direction follows the Supreme Court's oral observations in the pending case K.R. Sudersan v. Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, which highlighted deficiencies in institutions imparting legal education.

Universities have been instructed to constitute competent inspection teams to conduct comprehensive, institution-specific physical inspections rather than relying on affidavits, photographs or online submissions. The inspections must verify classrooms, libraries, reading facilities, current textbooks and journals, electronic databases, internet connectivity, moot court halls, legal aid clinics, seminar rooms, sanitation, accessibility, fire safety measures, administrative offices and other facilities mandated under the Rules of Legal Education, 2008.

The BCI has also mandated detailed verification of faculty, including their qualifications, appointment records, attendance, salary payments through banking channels, UGC pay compliance and whether institutions have the prescribed number of exclusive full-time teachers. It warned that temporary presence of faculty on the inspection date or paper records alone would not suffice.

Discontinue weekend, evening classes

Significantly, the regulator has directed universities to identify and discontinue impermissible weekend, evening, compressed or shift-based law courses that dilute the mandatory character of regular legal education. It said any arrangement replacing regular instruction with occasional weekend or evening classes or facilitating proxy attendance must be stopped immediately, and no further admissions should be permitted under such arrangements.

"Universities have also been directed to identify and discontinue any impermissible weekend, evening classes, shift-based arrangements that dilutes the mandatory character of a regular law course. Any arrangement designed to accommodate part-time students or working persons by replacing regular instruction with occasional weekend or evening classes, or by facilitating proxy attendance, has to be stopped forthwith and no further admissions should be permitted under any such arrangement. Bar Councils are not going to allow such persons to practice law," the Press Release stated.

The BCI Circular clarified :

"The Rules define a regular course of study as one running for at least five hours a day, with the prescribed recess, and for not less than thirty hours of working schedule per week. Any arrangement that dilutes the mandatory regular character of the law course, substitutes occasional weekend or evening teaching for regular instruction, or facilitates proxy attendance shall be stopped forthwith. Admissions to such impermissible arrangements shall not be permitted."

Six week timeline

The BCI has directed that the entire exercise, including inspections, scrutiny, passing of appropriate orders and submission of consolidated university-wise reports, be completed within six weeks. Universities have also been asked to acknowledge receipt of the circular within three working days, appoint a nodal officer and furnish a complete list of law colleges under their jurisdiction. Failure to complete the exercise within the stipulated period would be placed before the competent committee of the Bar Council of India for regulatory consideration.

Where deficiencies are found in essential infrastructure, faculty, libraries, teaching hours or other mandatory norms, universities have been instructed to initiate proceedings to suspend or withdraw affiliation and report serious violations to the BCI. They have also been asked to verify that every course, section and intake possesses valid and subsisting BCI approval, clarifying that university affiliation cannot substitute for BCI recognition.