Report No. 184

1.3 Response of the UGC:-

The University Grant Commission, in its letter dated 16.9.1999, while welcoming the initiative taken by the Law Commission with regard to the improvement of Legal Education and quality of Legal Profession, referred to the 'Report of the Curriculum Development Centre, 1988- 1990', headed by Prof. Upendra Baxi. Part-I of that Report runs into about 100 pages and Part II runs into about 740 pages. That Report was prepared by a team of expert academicians for the UGC during 1988-1990. The 8 UGC, in its letter remarked that unfortunately in the Working Paper prepared by the Law Commission, no reference was made to the Report of the above Expert Committee.

It further stated that the UGC Panel on legal education "was looking forward for better inter-action among UGC and BCI, among others." The UGC then gave its views with regard to Chapters I and II of the Law Commission's Working Paper. It referred to the proposed amendments to section 7(1)(h) and section 10(2)(b). Seeking greater representation for the law teachers in the Legal Education Committee of the Bar Council of India it suggested that in the said Committee, it would not be necessary to have as members, the Secretary UGC or the Secretary, Ministry of Law as was the case at present and that the Director of National Law School, Bangalore need not also be a member as proposed.

It was stated that the UGC was constitutionally empowered to deal with 'Standards of Legal Education'. It may here be stated that the above Expert Committee referred to by UGC, in its Report also regretted that the B.C.I. had not consulted either the Universities or the UGC, at any stage. Various other suggestions were made in the above letter on other matters.

1.4 We may here add that a fresh 'UGC Model Curriculum' was prepared in the year 2001 by the Curriculum Development Committee (CDC) constituted by the UGC in the year 2000. (This runs into 500 pages) In fact, the UGC panel on law had initiated the work of revision and updating of the LL.M. and LL.B. (Hons) syllabi prepared by the Curriculum Development Committee in 1988-1990. It was stated that the Bar Council of India has already presented texts of the course for LL.B. but 9 in as much as it did not formulate detailed subjects, the CDC was taking up the matter.

This Committee for LL.M. and LL.B. (Hons) consisted of Prof. C.M. Jariwala, Prof. N.S. Chandrashekharan, Prof. V.K. Bhansal, Prof. K.L. Bhatia, Prof. Mool Chand Sharma, Prof. Hargopal Reddy, Prof. T. Bhattacharya and Prof. P. Leelakrishnan as Convenor. The Committee to formulate LL.B. syllabus had eight members which included Prof. Ranbir Singh & Prof. M. Pinheiro also. The New Report of the CDC of the UGC is dated 9.3.2001.