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Supreme Court: Urgent and Immediate Reforms Needed in the Legal Education Due To Mushrooming of Law Schools

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The Supreme Court, on Saturday, said that there is an urgent need for reforming the legal education in the country as its quality is being affected due to the ‘mushrooming’ of Law Colleges.

“I do believe we are churning out too many lawyers without any analysis of the number of lawyers required,” said Justice SK Kaul.

According to the judge, the quality of legal education has suffered as a result of a large number of ‘not so great law colleges’ and the ‘crying need of the hour’ was to see how legal education can be improved.

Similar arguments and concerns were raised by Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi. While referring to the concerns raised by Justice Kaul and Singhvi, Justice NV Ramanna said,

“I welcome this thought-provoking discussion and I agree with what they have expressed. Legal Education does require urgent and immediate reforms.”

He further added by saying,

“I hope something can be done and we can take up this issue in the coming days.”

The remarks were made by the two Supreme Court judges during an event for the release of the book, “The Law of Emergency Powers” which has been authored by a well-known Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Professor Khagesh Gautam, who teaches law at Jindal Global Law School, on a legal and constitutional study of Emergency Powers.

Speaking at the event, which was conducted virtually, Singhvi lamented upon the “glaring absence of genuine legal research in large parts of India”.

“Part of this is due to the many factories of legal education we produce with hardly any quality control. The negative impact of the stratification of law colleges must be urgently addressed.

“Central universities set up by Parliament operate their law faculty as law schools, while state universities act mostly as affiliating universities which are affiliating colleges set up by private trusts and societies,” he said.

He said that the major problem facing Indian legal education, particularly good legal research, was the affiliated law college system.

“Many do not have adequate or qualified faculty or libraries or e-resources and they omit regular classes and examinations,” he added and demanded that substandard and mediocre law colleges ought to be closed down.


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