GULBARGA: Vice-Chancellor of NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad, Ranbir Singh on Thursday said that the establishment of law universities in different parts of the country had given a push to improving the standards of legal education.

Prof. Singh, who was here leading a two-member NAAC team to inspect the infrastructure at Siddartha Law College here, said until the National Law School of India University (NLSIU) was established in Bangalore in the early 1990s, the legal education scenario in the country was dominated by confusion and lack of direction.

After the success of NLSIU, the Government decided to establish law universities in other State capitals in 1996, and at present there were 11 such universities.

Prof. Singh said that although many leading lights of the freedom movement and those who occupied important positions in government after Independence were from the legal fraternity, not much importance was accorded to legal education.

While the Government gave importance to technical, management and medical education by opening IITs, IIMs and AIIMS, the same attention was not given to legal education, and for quality education one had to go to institutes and universities abroad.

Prof. Singh said that even after Independence, till the first law university was set up in Bangalore, the Government continued the legal education format introduced by the British and never endeavoured to improve the standard of legal education to match the quality of education offered by foreign universities.

However, Prof. Singh said this trend was reversed with the setting up of law universities which were providing quality education.

Referring to the legal education at the undergraduate level, Prof. Singh said a lot needed to be done to improve the quality of education imparted in colleges, and one reason for the fall in standards was lack of good faculty. There was a time when law graduates joined the teaching profession by choice, but now many of them joined the profession after exhausting all other options of employment.

Prof. Singh said that like in medical education, there was a need to introduce the system of continuing legal education for practising lawyers and teachers. Once in every five years practising lawyers should compulsorily participate in such programmes to update their knowledge. Prof. Singh accompanied by the principal of Salgoankar Law College, Panaji, inspected the facilities in the college on Wednesday.

He handed over the certificate of accreditation to the law college principal V.C. Matpathi.

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