NLU, Delhi needs field workers for a three-month project 

The National Law University, Delhi, will organise a special project on sexual harassment faced by women in cabs in Delhi-NCR. The project will be for three months and students with law or criminology background and preferably residents of Delhi will be eligible to take part. You can visit their website (https://nludelhi.ac.in/home.aspx) and register. The deadline for enrolling for the project is April 20.

Those eligible and selected will be required to involve themselves in full time field work, gathering primary data for the duration of the project. This data will be used for further study. The project entails analyses of paradigms around women safety concerns in cabs in Delhi-NCR and to identifying the key problems faced by women in said situations. The project is being funded by the National Commission for Women (NCW).

Three-month online course at NUJS for business law

The West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS) offers a three-month online certificate and training programme on business and commercial laws. The course looks forward to building a legal and business community engaged in commercial litigation. The course has a reasonable fee of Rs 10,000. The last date for submitting the application with the fee is April 20 and the course commences on May 1. You can visit the website (https://www.nujs.edu/) for enrolment forms and other information.

The course is open to practising lawyers, chartered accountants, company secretaries and also for students in the final year of law graduation.

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The NUJS remains one of three national law schools that have the Honourable Chief Justice of India as its chancellor. NUJS is considered one of the best among the elite national law schools in India, built on the five-year law degree model proposed and implemented by the Bar Council of India. Its mission is to provide student-centric education and foster personal and intellectual growth.

ILS to host National Moot Court Competition

The Indian Law Society (ILS) law college of Pune will organise an event from May 7 to 9, in which three critical sub-sections will include the 15th National Moot Court Competition, the Public Memorial Lecture and a Conference in remembrance of Professor SP Sathe (ex-principal). The events are also to commemorate Prof Sathe’s contribution to Indian jurisprudence and Social Action and encourage academic pursuit of law students.

The theme of this year’s moot competition is the “Role of Forensic Science and Technology in Criminal Justice System: Challenges and Threats”. The Moot problem (the questions for the competition), along with all the required documents for eligibility has been given on the website of the college. Students of full-time bachelor law programmes at the time of competition will be eligible to participate and each college is allowed one team only. To know more details about the competition visit the website.

Forbes rates Marwadi University among top Indian law schools

 The faculty of law, Marwadi University, has been featured as one of the top law schools of India by Forbes India’s Legal Powerlist 2020. Forbes India’s Powerlist 2020 features those law schools that provide students with training to become excellent lawyers and outstanding professionals. Marwadi University is one of the youngest and fastest-growing law schools, a private university in Rajkot, Gujarat.

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On the occasion, Dr Rishikesh Dave, dean of the faculty of law of the university, said he was happy and honoured for making it to Forbes India. “We are working in the right direction to fulfil the vision of making this law school one of the best institutes across the globe,” he said. The Powerlist was announced by Forbes, where a jury of experts selected the top law schools.

Corporate Insolvency Resolution Colloquium at GNLU

The Centre for Corporate and Insolvency Law (CCIL) at Gujarat National Law University (GNLU) in collaboration with the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India is organising a national colloquium on “Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process: Under­standing Emerging Issues and Challenges”. Authors and students who wish to submit papers can send their abstracts in not more than 500-600 words by March 11, 2020.

The themes for the colloquium includes: constitutional validity of the IBC, 2016, CIRP – risks and challenges involved, moratorium and stays of suits with special reference to criminal proceedings, proceedings during the moratorium, closure, recovery and enforcement under the SARFAESI Act, 2020 during the CIRP and extension of the duration of the CIRP by the adjudicating authorities and impact of this extension on IBC, 2016. Apart from the above-mentioned themes, contributors may select any contemporary/emerging issue relevant to the main theme of the colloquium.

Participation fee for the students is Rs 1,000 and for others Rs 1,500.

NLUO invites papers on protection to persons with disabilities

The Centre for Disability Law and Advocacy at National Law University, Odisha (NLUO) has invited original unpublished papers on the theme, “Protection to persons with disabilities— Challenges and Solutions”.

The papers should include a comprehensive analysis of the issues being dealt with. They may be the result of either doctrinal or empirical research and provide an in-depth understanding of the issue covered under the topic. Academicians, faculty members and researchers having expertise in this area can contribute well-researched articles.

All the papers will be reviewed and checked on anti-plagiarism software. Contributions in the form of articles should be between 5,000 and 7,000 words (excluding footnotes). All submissions must include an abstract of 300 to 350 words. The authors can submit original and unpublished articles that may address themes like current laws, policies and implementation challenges in developing countries, disability and role of the State and private parties, disability and non-discrimination, disability and issues of accessibility, disability and equality of opportunity and so on.

 Students at Faculty of Law protest for their L.L.B degrees

Students of the Faculty of Law, Delhi University are protesting against the non-recognition of their degrees by the Bar Council of India. Adhering to a December 2019 order of the Dehli High Court, the Bar Council of India has published a list according to which only those students who have taken admission in the Faculty of Law, till 2016-17 will get a valid degree in law. The students demand immediate approval of their degrees by the Bar Council of India.

The students have also alleged that the Faculty of Law has failed to comply with University Grants Commission (Redress of Grievances of Students) Regulations, 2019 as the administration is not even acknowledging their pending grievances for years.

The students have further demanded reforms in the evaluation system for law students, transparency in administration, compliance with the RTI Act, disclosure of financial records, adoption of a constitution for the student union and basic amenities such as clean drinking water and a proper canteen for the students.

International Conference at NUJS

The West Bengal National University Juridical Sciences (NUJS), is organising an International Conference on Criminal Justice Administration: Emerging Issues in 21st Century, from March 20 to 22, 2020.

The conference aims to provide an international platform for scholars to assemble and share their research on several prominent issues anticipated to emerge in the 21st century. The conference will provide an opportunity to interact with academics, researchers, law enforcement personnel, prosecutors, judges and policymakers from around the globe. The plenary sessions of the conference will include lectures by notable experts in the field.

The sub-themes of the conference include gender inequality under criminal law, individual privacy and collective security under criminal law, mental health and criminal law, the process of Investigation and the reforms, sexual offences and criminal law, juvenile justice and criminal law, technology and crime, prisoners’ rights and criminal law and so on. Interested authors can present their paper at the conference.

National Multi-disciplinary Law Conference at SLS

Symbiosis Law School (SLS), Hyderabad is organising a national multi-disciplinary conference titled “Coherence—forming a unified whole”. It aims to provide the legal fraternity and scholars from other disciplines an opportunity to relate law to various disciplines. Perspectives of legal philosophy, legal issues involving psychology, contemporary developments in international law, legal sociology and legal history, legal issues in sports including sports science and sports management, literature and multi-culturalism, medical science and legal concerns are some of the topics that will be discussed in the conference. The conference will take place from March 14 to 15, 2020.

                                                                                         —Compiled by Nupur Dogra

For the past eight years, a young lawyer and his team have been training marginalized teens for law entrances and spreading the message of equality and social justice

By Sucheta Dasgupta

Change often springs from the loneliest of places, the poorest of homes. Sometimes, suffering has wings. This is the story of how a young lawyer chose to give up legal practice and start an initiative that has impacted the lives of scores of marginalized youngsters. They have not only dreamt the social justice dream but have also been trained to access education at India’s most prestigious law colleges. This is also their story.

It all started eight years ago when Shamnad Basheer (39) stepped into the lecture hall of National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS) in Kolkata. Basheer was a product of the National Law School in Bangalore and had practiced in a Delhi intellectual property law firm for about two-and-a-half to three years before leaving for Oxford to do his post-graduation. He then went to Washington for his first teaching job.

Basheer moved back to India after getting in touch with Prof MP Singh, NUJS’ visionary vice-chancellor, who was very keen on changing the face of legal education in India. Singh wanted to convert NUJS into a re-search hub and experiment with new pedagogical models.

Teaching at NUJS, Basheer soon realized that the class composition was such that when he picked up a topic like the Plant Varieties Act which touches agriculture, most of his students were unable to fully comprehend as they did not have any first-hand experience of an agricultural field. This was because over 95 percent students were from a very upper middle class privileged India.

As Basheer says, “This would have been okay for any other educational institution but for law it was really stark because on the one hand, we were teaching things like fairness, equality, equity, constitutional values, inclusiveness, the idea of India and all of that, and on the other, our class composition was completely at odds with all the goals we were teaching because it was exclusionary and more than 95 percent of India was not represented in our classroom.

“This also included places like the North-east and Kashmir. There was severe under representation from marginal communities, Dalits, minority populations and other groups and unless we let these students into the room, we couldn’t really call ourselves a law institution teaching constitutional values.”

So Basheer and Singh brainstormed the problem, even speaking to scholars from around the world, and thus IDIA (Increasing Diversity by Increasing Access) was born. At this stage, there were three bottlenecks: English, the steep price of the application forms and the law school tuition fee that ran into `2-3 lakh a year. “Now, all the really good programs in law schools are the ones that are completely student-run. And so I said, let’s put power in the hands of the students. This serves two goals: One is that it works, and if you give them complete freedom and make it their baby, they tend to do a good job when you stand out of their way. Two, since many of these students are from upper middle class privileged India, this will give them a chance to get socially sensitized because they would be going into parts of India they would otherwise have never have gone to. It works both ways, it helps them, and it helps the project and it creates better lawyers down the line,” says Basheer.

As things stand today, IDIA has established its network in 17 states with a core team of eight full-time people and 400 student volunteers. Starting out from a government school in Pelling in west Sikkim, it has sent five batches of students to law colleges nationwide and currently supports the education of about 50 students. Its first batch is set to graduate this year.

So what is the methodology followed by IDIA? IDIA goes for a three-step procedure. It first reaches out to schools in towns and villages, for instance, to the Jawaharlal Nehru Vidyalayas in Warangal, Jodhpur and Jalore, attempting to generate interest in law. It also collaborates with NGOs such as Kranti in Mumbai. Kranti works with the children of sex workers. In Kolkata, it is working with transgender groups.

Children who are interested are put through an aptitude test. The selection criteria include an annual family income bar of Rs 3 lakh. Cyber cafes are roped in to give the students access to free internet. After the initial online training, students are trained on a regular basis for CLAT (Common Law Admission Test) and AILET (All India Law Entrance Test) by IDIA student volunteers and two leading CLAT training centers in Bangalore and Delhi for 2-3 years.

And the efforts have paid off, and generated some wonderful success stories to cite. Meet 19-year-old Karthika Annamalai from a stone quarry on the outskirts of Bangalore. She is fatherless and her mother breaks sto-nes for a living. Karthika cleared CLAT in 2011 and is studying in NUJS. Last year, she went to Budapest to represent India at the World Policy Debate.

Then there’s Arindam Bhattacharya who has already landed a prized job with top-tier law firm Khaitan & Company. His annual family income is only Rs 50,000.

In its first year, IDIA had picked up some students from a blind school in Hyderabad. Basheer himself had to convince universities to convert study material into Braille and digital format for them. Many of these students would be graduating this year. And not a single one has dropped out. In fact, one of them, from Nellore, will go on to appear for the civil service examination.

However, Basheer says he faced some problems convincing parents and teachers to send children to law school in the initial stages. “There is a lot of interest in pursuing medical and engineering professions, both parental and peer-driven, in Indian society. Few choose humanities and even fewer opt for law.”

“When we first went into the field, we realized that law had such a negative color about it. We were actually thrown out of two schools where the principals told us that there is no way they will let their students come into this ‘disgraceful profession’. Thanks to Bollywood, people consider lawyers to be cheats,” says Basheer.

Basheer says his team had to slowly “deconstruct this notion. So we took them back to basics and told them that the law is actually an empowerment tool. To fight oppression in society, it is a valuable weapon. Law gives you powerful vocabulary. The moment you study it, you get the power of persuasion. Law makes you a natural leader. Look at all our freedom fighters; they could advocate their cause because they came from a legal background”.

For many people, he says it is all about the connect. “We have to get them intellectually excited about the profession. The first time we went to the Northeast, there was this really bright girl from Pelling, whose parents had made up their minds that she had to be a doctor, but her heart wasn’t in that. From our interaction, we could tell that she would make a great lawyer. She was argumentative and thoughtful, and could put ac-ross a nice point of view. But she hadn’t considered law at all; she was passionate about trekking and the forest,” recounts Basheer. “So we asked her, what if somebody came and cut down your forest? They can’t do that, she said. Then we explained to her how law wo-uld help her fight against land-grabbers and protect the forest. Her eyes lit up and then, bang, she was in. This is how, she realized, she could make a difference,” says Basheer.

Fundraising, however, remains a problem area for IDIA. When it started, the IDIA project was being run on personal funding and through donations from friends, but it has now reached a size which will make it unsustainable if corporate funding is not involved. Basheer  acknowledges the support he has received from one of his trustees, entrepreneur Shishira Rudrappa, who is also special adviser to the Karnataka chief minister. The finances were in such a bad shape that Basheer almost contemplated shutting IDIA down, and it was he who saved the day.

However, this year, IDIA has got some corporate funding from mass media and information firm Thomson Reuters.

 Basheer sure has come a long way but he has a long way to go. “We had a lot to learn along the way,” he says as he looks back.