The Bar Council of India (BCI) said that it is in the process of issuing show cause notices to some of India's top law universities for offering LL.Ms or similarly titled postgraduate degrees through online, hybrid or distance learning mode sans approval.
On the BCI's radar are institutes including National Law Institute University (NLIU), Bhopal; Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur (IIT-K); OP Jindal Global University (JGU), Sonipat; and National Law University, Delhi (NLU Delhi).
"These institutions frequently insert vague statements indicating that the course is not equivalent to the BCI-recognized LLM., while simultaneously and prominently using the nomenclature "LL.M." in their brochures, advertisements, and academic materials," the statement reads.
Co-chairman of a standing committee under the aegis of BCI's Legal Education Committee Justice (retd) Rajendra Menon has issued a directive to prohibit such LL.M. programmes without prior approval from the BCI.
It also states that LL.M. degrees earned via online, distance or hybrid modes without the BCI's approval will be treated invalid for jobs, academic posts, research, judicial services and promotions.
The directive addressed to the Registrars General of all High Courts raises concerns on the "unauthorised and misleading" legal education programmes being offered in non- compliance with the Bar Council's Legal Education Rules, 2008 and 2020.
The BCI has advised institutions that offering such LL.M courses can harm the credibility of legal education in India, undermining the legal and academic value of real LL.M. degrees.
The LL.M. is a statutorily recognised degree for entry into teaching and advanced legal roles. The BCI states that permitting non-law graduates into LL.M. programmes with prefixes of 'Professional' or 'Executive' misrepresents diplomas or training programmes to be postgraduate degrees in law.
It further stated that online or distance learning legal education is not comparable to conventional classrooms due to a lack of interactive legal discourse, faculty-student engagement, legal reasoning, argumentation, and analysis, which are essential competencies of the legal profession.
To raises awareness, the BCI is in the process of issuing a national advisory to warn students, legal institutions and government departments to disregard such LL.M. degrees as qualifications.
[Read Standing Committee directive]