Cracking the whip on 35 government law colleges in Maharashtra, Bar Council of India (BCI), has asked the state higher and technical education ministry to appoint permanent teachers in these institutions as soon as possible. Meanwhile, the government has assured BCI that it will appoint nearly 300 faculty within the next one-and-a-half year.
BCI vice-chairman, Advocate Satish Deshmukh, said that law colleges in Maharashtra had not been adhering to the norm of appointing one faculty for every 40 students.
“Almost all government-aided law colleges in the state having 900 students are functioning with only two to three permanent faculty,” he said, disclosing the contents of the inspection report of 138 law colleges in the state.
“The colleges have been employing services of practicing lawyers, who are invited to take guest lectures. As a result, there have been a lot of problems in the academic system and the examination process has been most affected,” Advocate Deshmukh said.
With nearly 33,000 students all over the state, out of which about 11,800 students are in law colleges under the jurisdiction of the University of Mumbai (UM), lack of permanent teachers is leading to a lot of problems in the assessment process. This is why BCI has decided to crack the whip.
According to Advocate Deshmukh, out of 49 colleges under MU, nine government-aided colleges have only 16 faculty.
“The need is one faculty for every 40 students and hence, the BCI met the state government and asked it to hire permanent teachers and fill up the posts. The government has assured that it will be hiring 300 teachers within the next year,” he said.
About the remaining private colleges, he said, “The BCI standing committee is screening the colleges in its meeting at Allahabad. We will be shortlisting colleges that have been blatantly rejecting the authority of BCI and issuing orders of de-recognition against them. Colleges found with insufficient faculty will be asked to stop admissions till such time they hire regular faculty.”
