Supreme Court issues notice on PIL for Legal Education Commission to review duration of law courses

The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued notice on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking directions for the establishment of a Legal Education Commission to review the curriculum and duration of Bachelor of Laws (LL.B) and Master of Laws (LL.M) courses in India [Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay V. Union of India and Ors]..A Bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi sought responses from the Central government, the Bar Council of India (BCI), the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the Law Commission of India.The matter is listed for September 9..The PIL filed by Advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay contended that while the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 promotes four-year graduation programmes across all professional and academic courses, the BCI has not yet taken steps to review the LL.B and LL.M courses.The plea sought directions from the Court to the Centre to establish a Legal Education Commission or an expert committee comprising eminent educationists, jurists, retired judges, advocates and professors to review the syllabus, curriculum and duration of law courses.The petitioner has argued that the extended duration of the five-year law course appears to be structured primarily for monetary gain."The unreasonable 5 years B. Law Course has been set under the pressure of private college management so as to make the most amount of money they could from the course. The Course fee of Private Law Colleges and even the National Law Universities is exorbitant and lower as well as middle class students find it very difficult to pursue Law with such exorbitant fees structure and that too for 05 years. Students not only pay too much but also lose too much of their precious time due to such a lengthy course," Upadhyay has contended in the petition..The plea highlights that legal luminaries like Ram Jethmalani and Fali Nariman succeeded without being restricted by rigid systems."If late Sh. Ram Jethmalani can become a legend of the bar by starting his law career in just 17 years, then why should the youth waste 01 additional years of their life in the 05 years integrated course and not start their career from a younger age of 20-21 years?...Sh. Fali Nariman completed 03 years law after 12th at the age of 21 years. There are numerous examples of prodigies not being encumbered by a rigid system which focuses more on being the jack of all rather than being the master of one."It states that it is unfortunate that the Central government has not yet established a Legal Education Commission for law courses like the Medical Education Commission..Senior Advocates Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Vikas Singh briefed by Upadhyay and Advocates Ashwani Kumar Dubey, Deepika Kalia, Nikhil Upadhyay, Rohit Kumar Singh, Yash Johri, Saif Mahmood, Sumanta De, Shweta Priyadarshini, Nishi Singh, Rahul Shyam Bhandari, G Priyadharshni, Satyam Pathak and Prabhakar Pahepuri appeared for the petitioner..Senior Advocate Vivek K Tankha and R Bala and Advocates Radhika Gautam, Anjul Dwivedi, Shrey Garf, Varun Tankha, Sumeer Sodhi, Harshit Joshi, Inder Dev Singh, Vipul Tiwari, Chaitanya Sharma, Sunita Gautam, N Visakamurthy, Anshuman Sharma, Sriharsh Nahush Bundela, Azaz Ahmed and Naveen Kumar Yadav appeared for the respondents.