Revealed: The critical BCI report on NUJS mismanagement that's lain buried for 9 months
Revealed: The critical BCI report on NUJS mismanagement that's lain buried for 9 months
NUJS: Cobwebs and closet skeletonA Bar Council of India (BCI)-led “fact finding body” produced a critical report in November 2013 on NUJS Kolkata’s affairs.
However, to most intents and purposes, the 224-page report has been buried by the administration since then.
Headlines
The
report concluded that the law school was short of at least 10 teachers,
including four professors, and asked NUJS to “make fresh recruitment of
faculty staff including some senior Professors”, and to design “short
credit courses” instead of full courses, to enable the university to
invite more visiting faculty.
The body also found other gaps in
the running of the law school, including “awfully bad” maintenance of
administrative records, power factions in the faculty leading to a lack
of coordination between the administration and the faculty body,
irregularities in employment and inadequate examination rules.
It
advised that it was “high time” the chancellor constituted a University
Review Commission (URC) which was pending since May 2010.
Signed
by BCI members Ashok Kumar De (also an NUJS executive council member),
RG Shah and the BCI’s Legal Education Committee member Dr NL Mitra, the
body also suggested setting up a BCI special committee for National Law
University affairs in general. The committee could be comprised of a
retired Supreme Court judge, an academic of high repute, a lawyer of
high repute and the BCI’s chairman.
It advised the NUJS
executive council to constitute a “strong committee to examine past
records and faculty members’ grievances” and to decide on the matter of a
former employee who had alleged unfair summary dismissal from the
university. It also advised the vice chancellor (VC) to formulate rules
and a “best practice code” for faculty meetings and decisions.
“Suppressed” report
Student
and faculty sources at NUJS claimed the administration made no effort
to make them aware of the report, and even “suppressed” it from those
who found out about its existence and filed Right to Information (RTI)
applications seeking to unearth it.
One faculty member said: “We
were interviewed by the BCI members like Professor NL Mitra and some
other persons were there. Professor Mitra was heading the committee. We
were asked about all the problems that NUJS was facing at the moment.
But the document hasn’t been made public. The BCI report was received by
the VC last year during the month of November and the EC [meeting] was
held thereafter. And the EC has been demanding to see that report but he
has not shown it.
“That report has been suppressed. RTIs have
been filed but there has been no response either from the BCI or from
the university.”
NUJS vice chancellor Ishwara Bhatt commented:
“I have submitted an application to the chief justice asking for the
constitution of the University Review Commission. It is for him to
decide [by when it will be constituted].”
He told Legally India
that 8 faculty in both law and social sciences were hired by NUJS since
November, and that the law school was “waiting for specific suggestion
from the BCI” on how to give justice to the former employee who had
alleged unfair treatment.
“We have taken all the appropriate measures, I cannot share any detail,” he said.
An
April 2014 report by a committee led by former Rajasthan high court
chief justice NN Mathur found evidence indicative of financial
mismanagment of funds at NUJS, as reported by Legally India last week. That report had been shared with the student body by the student council.
On “grossly inadequate” teaching staff
The
body noted that the currently present number of 22-23 teachers at NUJS
was not enough to meet the “hunger of a modern student”, and that the
number was such because “the University did not have adequate and
proactive leave policy and faculty deployment planning”.
The body made the following observations:
“[…]
the allegation of the students that there were inadequate numbers of
faculty members in the University and in each vertical/department of
knowledge was very right.”
“[…] about 1/4th of the faculty strength at a given time was been found to be on leave including study leave […]”
“To
tell the truth with 22-23 faculties one can think only of managing a
Law College with definitive program without any specialization. It could
not be a University. Naturally hunger of a modern student could hardly
be met.”
“In fact the University
would require at least additional faculty of 2 to 3 in Social Science
(at least 1 in Economics), and 7 to 8 in various branches of Law
especially 2 in Criminal administration of Justice, one in Procedural
law and legal aid (preferable a retired District Judge), 1 in
International Trade Law, 1 in Taxation including International Taxation,
2 in Business Law and 1 in Banking & Insurance. The University
would require at least 10 devoted faculty members (of whom at least 5
dedicated professors) to run one year LLM. That being the minimum
requirement under UGC guidelines.”
“The
Committee noticed that the University did not have required number of
Professors. According to UGC Rules also there has to be at least five
Professors. But there were only two Professors including the Vice
Chancellor. As a matter of fact there was only one regular Professor.
The cadre Professor was on lien and left to take charge of ILI Delhi.
Other two Chair Professors have their chair commitment if any. One of
course was on long leave.”
“It
would also show that the university could not open its basket of
optional courses and specialized papers because it would not have simple
“numbers” both quantity as well as quality-wise, of teachers to take up
responsibility. Even in conventional branches of law, like criminal
law, civil law, personal law, international law and such others, the
university was not in a position to afford presently more than a single
position. With one criminal law faculty host of specialized courses such
as juvenile justice, IT offences, […etc.] could not be taken up. With
one corporate law faculty one would not be able to think to run
specialized courses on corporate finance, […etc…] The university did not
have any faculty on Banking and Insurance. Naturally, students have the
reason to feel suffocated due to paucity of adequate teaching staff. It
is in this context, the University would better design short credit
courses and ask students to take total so many credit instead of full
courses of 4 credit each. That would enable the University to invite
more visiting faculty.”
“The strength of the faculty for social science was grossly inadequate especially in Economics.”
“So
the Committee found the grievances of the students to be quite
justified. Committee would urge upon the LEC of the BCI to direct the
University authority to redress these grievances by making fresh
recruitment of faculty staff including some senior Professors, keeping
in view the requirements.”
Other areas of mismanagement
The
fact finding body said that there was evidence indicating that there
was a sentiment in the faculty body that favouritism was being practiced
at the law school, that there were “clear cases” of irregular
employments being made at NUJS, and that maintenance of service records
and other records at the law school was abysmal.
It made the following observations:
“There
was a strong feeling among faculty members that some faculty members
would always like to remain closer to the center to the power and were
always favored.”
“The Committee
strongly felt that in the absence of regular and timely meetings of the
Faculty in which Faculty members could very freely exchange views and
could review actions and resolutions of academic management perspectives
in a seamless operation of flow of academic administration, this
divisions and sub divisions would remain and that would injure the
homogeneity of the faculty and administration.”
“At
least two clear cases were presented in which there were evidences of
some gross deviation from normal practices relating to selection of
academic staff an pay protection (or denial thereof) by concerned
faculty members in their oral presentations.”
“It
was revealed that maintenance of records and including service records
and other administrative records were awfully bad and the statutory
rules were also not observed willfully.”
“These
incidents must be administered with a very strong hand. The Committee
was concerned with the present indiscipline and absence self-restraint.
The Committee urges the EC to examine all matters of administrative
lapses and also deal with those who indulged in indiscipline either
openly or through media […]”
Full main body of report (excluding annexures)
Editor's note: We are working on analysing and scanning the voluminous annexures and hope to publish parts of these in future.
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