Mumbai: Bar Council ups pressure on law colleges by threatening alumni

One of the colleges that has defaulted

Those who have passed out from New Law College and VPM Law College stand at the brink of losing their registration, if the new mandate by the Bar Council stands ground. The Bar Council of India (BCI) has decided to take a ‘tough' stand on the colleges who have defaulted on the approval parameters by cancelling the registrations of the alumni.

Where it began
It all started when the Bombay High Court asked the state government to take help from BCI in scrutinising the law colleges across the state and preparing a status report as to whether the institutions are adhering to the parameters. The BCI has already made a list of such colleges who reportedly did not follow regulations like number of classrooms, teacher-student ratio, etc and have asked them to pay the penalty.

"If the colleges fail to pay the fine, BCI registrations of their alumni will be in danger. We will begin the process of scrutinising registration given to students of these defaulter colleges," said Satish Deshmukh, Vice Chairman, BCI.

He further said that the colleges were given an extension of the final date for payment of the penalty, but some colleges are yet to pay it. Though new admissions have started in these colleges in September after a long wait, the approval is subject to payment of penalty fees.

Tough stand against alumni
"We have to take a tough stand now," said Deshmukh, indicating that the registrations of the graduates stand at a risky position. Meanwhile, the principals of two such defaulter colleges of the city maintain that they have not been officially notified about past students losing out their registration, but they are aware of the fine that they have to pay.

"We will communicate with the BCI to discuss the matter," said Narayan Rajadhyaksha, principal of the New Law College.

Srividhya Jayakumar, principal of VPM Law College said, "We have received the letter of penalty payment from the BCI We have responded to it."