Law teachers want the Bar Council of India (BCI) to allow them to practice law in courts as they can contribute more meaningfully to the legal system. Keeping them away from practice was ‘harming’ the judiciary.
A decision on this was taken at the Executive Committee meeting of the Consortium of National Law Universities (NLUs) held at NALSAR University of Law here on Thursday. A statement from NALSAR Vice-Chancellor, Faizan Mustafa, said teachers, if permitted, can practice on violation of human rights, interpreting Constitution and seeking overruling of wrong judgements.
Prof. Mustafa said they want the Bar Council of India to amend Rule 49 that prohibits full-time salaried employees from practising in courts. If that is not accepted, teachers should be paid 25% non-practising allowance on the lines of the payment made to government doctors.
However, he said regulations like limiting not more than three appearances in the courts and sharing the fee between the university concerned and the law teacher in the ratio of 60:40 could be introduced so that teachers concentrate more on teaching. He said the committee felt that the country needs litigation lawyers, while the gap between law in books and law in action should also be bridged. For this, teachers themselves should go to the court along with students. The meeting also took a decision to constitute a Grievance Redressal Committee for Common Law Admission Test (CLAT-2019) to be headed by a former SC Judge, two former Vice-Chancellors and two serving Vice-Chancellors of the National Law Universities.
