Why interfering in academic affairs, leave it to experts: SC to BCI
By : Sandhya
NEW DELHI, The Supreme Court chastised the Bar Council of India on Tuesday for "interfering in academic affairs of law colleges" and stated that the responsibility should be left to academics. A bench of Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh was hearing appeals against the BCI's 2021 decision to abolish the one-year LLM course in the nation and de-recognize overseas LLMs.
"Why are you interfering with academic affairs?" Why should the BCI decide the curriculum, etc., of law colleges? Some academic expert should handle these matters. In this country, there is a large class of lawyers. "You have an onerous statutory responsibility to update their knowledge and organise training programmes for them," the bench stated.
The Supreme Court said, "You can have training in the art of drafting, understanding case laws, and so on, and it should be part of your statutory responsibility." Academicians must be responsible for the curriculum." When senior lawyer Vivek Tankha, representing the BCI, stated that it was the "existing system," the bench responded, "You have imposed yourself and claimed you are the only authority in this country."