The Bar Council of India (BCI) on Thursday put the ball in the court of Centers for Legal Education and Legal Universities, regarding the conducting of examinations for intermediate and final year students.
A statement issued by BCI said the high-level committee of experts has unanimously agreed that Universities and Centers of Legal Education shall conduct examinations for intermediate and final year students, as per their own dispensation, depending upon the availability of resources and the impact of Covid-19 in that region.
According to a statement issued by BCI, “The Bar Council of India received requests from the students of different Universities and law colleges of the country. Some heads of Institutions have also sought guidance of the Council on the point of examinations and promotion of LLB Students.”
The concern of majority of students was to grant them promotion on the basis of past performance or through some other method of assessment.
The students have expressed their grievances and assigned different sorts of reason for issuance of a general direction to all the Centers of Legal Education restraining them from holding any online or offline examination of any semester.
Earlier, the BCI, in its resolution dated May 29, had clearly expressed its views that it does not wish to involve itself in the matters of examinations and it is for the Universities to take their own decisions depending on the local conditions.
“Since the Council is the regulator of Legal Education and every student (particularly the students belonging to remote areas) is not supposed/cannot afford to move the Law Courts, therefore, the Bar Council of India had constituted a High Level Committee of Expert to consider the issue in details and to submit its report, so that the Council could take a final decision in the matter and could place its views before Hon’ble Delhi High Court and/or other Courts as and when necessary.”
After detailed discussion and deliberations, the Committee unanimously agreed that each University/Centers of Legal Education shall conduct examination for intermediate and final year students, as per their own dispensation, depending upon the availability of resources and the impact of Covid-19 in that region. It was unanimously agreed that an end-term examination is mandatory to be conducted by all Law Schools/Universities. It was further decided that University/Centers of Legal Education are free to determine the mode of examination, said the Committee, headed by Justice Govind Mathur, former Chief Justice of Allahabad High Court.
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The statement said, “The Committee also recommended that the Universities/Centers of Legal Education should ensure that sufficient time gap exists between regular and backlog examinations to avoid inconvenience to the students. The Committee also took note of the earlier resolutions adopted by Bar Council of India on May 27, 2020, September 6, 2020, October 5, 2020 and November, 2020, which had stipulated examinations for all semesters, and wherein guidelines regarding the mode of conduct of examination/evaluation had been issued, and unanimously agreed that the University/Centers of Legal Education are free to determine the mode of evaluation/examination for promotion and for award of the Law Degree and for the conduct of examination.”