The Supreme Court issued notice today, Tuesday, July 29, after a public interest litigation (PIL) was filed requesting the creation of a legal education committee to evaluate the syllabus, curriculum, and duration of LLB and LLM courses across the country.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi sought responses from the Centre, the University Grants Commission (UGC), the Bar Council of India (BCI), and the Law Commission to a petition questioning the 5-year integrated BA-LLB and BBA-LLB programmes in India, OmmCommNews reports.
As per the petition, the courses were outdated, financially burdensome, and inconsistent with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
Advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay filed a writ petition demanding the formation of an expert group comprising educationists, jurists, retired judges, attorneys, and academics to evaluate the syllabus, curriculum, and duration of law courses.
The PIL argued that the current legal education framework, particularly the five-year law courses, violates the spirit of NEP 2020 by requiring the study of non-law subjects such as history, economics, sociology, and political science, thereby affecting the conceptual understanding of core legal subjects.
The petitioner stated that whereas engineering degrees, such as BTech, are finished in four years, legal courses take five years, frequently causing students — particularly those from economically disadvantaged backgrounds — to spend an extra year and incur significant fees.
“The aim of the NEP is to provide universal access to quality education and attract the best talent. On the contrary, poor students can’t even afford the exorbitant fee structure complemented by the lengthy 5-year tenure. The existing 5-year tenure is designed only for the affluent or the upper middle-class people,” stated the plea.
It further said that law universities charge full fees during internship periods despite having no active participation in organising them.
“The fees should not be taken during internship months, as the colleges play absolutely no role in it. The student has to find the lawyer, pay for his/her own conveyance and pay the college as well,” the plea said.