Opinion: Tamil Nadu urgently needs quality private law schools, writes Justice K Chandru

The Madras High Court correctly found fault with the legislation as being incompetent and does not serve public interest.  It found that while AP has 37 law colleges and Karnataka has 93 law colleges and that anywhere between 1,600 and 1,750 law graduates who studied in 'other' states were being enrolled in Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry every year, Tamil Nadu which has as many as 700 Engineering Colleges, has only 7 government law colleges, one private law college, five law colleges run by deemed universities and two university colleges. 

The object for bringing the legislation, the state government stated-- it had taken a policy decision to establish adequate number of Government Law Colleges in the State in a phased manner-was to impart legal education, at affordable cost. Their past experience had revealed that private colleges are not able to provide legal education at affordable cost to the economically and socially weaker sections; nor are they able to continue to run the law colleges successfully. 

Though it has been more than two years since the legislation was brought in, not a single law college has established by the state till date. On the other hand, in the School of Excellence of law run by the Ambedkar University and the National Law School at Tiruchirapalli, the fee charged from students was over a lakh of rupees.  

Even in the Dr Ambedkar Law College at Chennai, only 11% are permanent qualified teachers, and the rest of the classes are managed by contract teachers. None of the UGC regulations governing the law colleges have been followed.  After the clash between students on communal lines, the state government appointed Justice Shanmugam Commission.  It recommended the shifting of the college from the High Court campus to three different places namely, at Tambaram, Tiruvallur, Ennore or Poonamallee.  This committee report, made and accepted by the government seven years ago, is yet to be implemented by the government. 

As rightly pointed out by the High Court, there are not enough law schools in Tamil Nadu for those desirous of pursuing legal education. As a result, two- thirds of those enrolling as advocates under the Tamil Nadu Bar Council are graduates from neighbouring Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. The fly-by-night law colleges run in those places are producing a large number of law graduates.  

The only way to tackle such ‘lowering’ of legal education is to impart quality education, both, by the government, as well as government approved private institutions. The objects set out by the law can never be implemented by the state alone and its oblique motive was to defeat the attempt by a particular Trust in establishing a law college near Tindivanam. 

Meanwhile, five deemed universities in Tamil Nadu started their own law colleges, as they do not require any such prior permission. Therefore, even after the legislation, two new law schools have come up but the state lacks any legislative power over such moves. The need is to regulate the private law schools strictly, rather than prevent their establishment. Curiously when the attempt to shift the law college from the High Court campus to other places was let known by the state government, many politicians, including Dr Ramdoss opposed the move by stating that a law college must be nearer to an high court.  One wonders whether the law college to be opened 15 km away from Tindivanam has even got a neighbourhood Munsif Court.