The Bar Council of India (BCI) on Thursday, 11 February, informed the Supreme Court that their decision to scrap the one-year LLM course will be effective from academic year 2022-23.
A three judge bench comprising Justices AS Bopanna, V Ramasubramanian and headed by Chief Justice SA Bobde recorded the statement of BCI. Its chairperson Manan Kumar Mishra said that no interim order would be required in the matter.
Senior advocate AM Singhvi, representing the Consortium of National Law Universities (NLUs) agreed with the BCI chairperson that no urgent order was required in their appeal against the BCI's decision.
The bench was considering the appeal against BCI’s recent notification about BCI Legal Education (Post Graduate, Doctoral, Executive, Vocational, Clinical and other Continuing Education) Rules, 2020. As per the new rules, the one-year LLM course will be scrapped and the new course will be of two years.
Validity of these new rules was challenged by the Consortium of National Law Universities. These rules were published in the official gazette on 4 January.
The Supreme Court has adjourned the matter for four weeks.
The Consortium of National Law Universities had sought status quo in the matter against the backdrop of 5,000 applications for one-year LLM course advertised in January this year.
They had contended that the LLM degree course comes under the domain of UGC regulations and the BCI had power under the Advocates Act to regulate the LLB degree only.
(With inputs from IANS)
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