NEW DELHI: To revamp the legal education system, the Bar Council of India (BCI) has planned to crack down on fake colleges operating across the country. The BCI step comes in the backdrop of several complaints it had received, highlighting an increase in the number of fake institutions that are found to have the same principal or faculty.
A minimum fine of Rs 3 lakh may be imposed on institutions with infrastructure lapse or furnishing false information to acquire BCI recognition.Such colleges have come under the BCI scanner following its verification drive of the lawyers’ degrees.The drive was conducted as the number of lawyers possessing fake degrees was suspected to have increased. BCI’s Legal Education Committee, in its meeting last week, has decided to conduct surprise inspections at the law colleges.
The BCI’s Legal Education Committee has decided to conduct surprise inspections at the fake law colleges. A resolution was also passed at the meeting last week, authorising BCI Chairman Manan Kumar Mishra, also a senior advocate, to constitute inspection teams.
The resolution states, “The Committee, on many occasions, has noted that at the time of inspection, some institutions manage to arrange fake infrastructure and even faculties and acquire the Council’s recognition anyhow. In many cases, the name of one faculty or principal appears in more than one institution.”
The BCI has also decided to make one of its members a part of the faculty selection committee at the law schools. It mooted that there should be one faculty for every 20 students.
An inspection team would comprise a former high court judge and a senior advocate or an advocate with at least 25 years of experience. The team would also include one and two professors of institutions offering three- and five-year programmes respectively.
BCI recommended that the inspections be done in a covert manner, “so that even the regular staff of the Legal Education Department of the Council might not get the prior information of such inspections.”
Besides these, a flying squad would also be formed to supervise the work of the inspection team. It would comprise one or two former High Court judges and teachers from the national law schools