Kiren Rijiju, ex-Minister of Sports and Youth Affairs, after the recent Cabinet reshuffle, was elevated to the rank of Cabinet Minister in the Ministry of Law and Justice. He attended the ceremony organised by BCI, on July 25, 2021, in BCI auditorium under the chairmanship of Manan Kumar Mishra.
The Ministry discussed the proposal of Institutional Quality in the ceremony an institution for legal academics in India. The lack of social and financial safety net for lawyers, lawyers implicated in criminal cases, and the murder of lawyers by rival parties in criminal and civil matters were also brought up. Infrastructure to attend virtual hearings and centre for international arbitration were also proposed by the BCI. Other issues that came up were the procedure of approval of law schools, and the inspection and policy loopholes.
This discussion coincides with the fact that the BCI has been put out of HECI on the prerogative of legal education, the proposed body to replace the UGC, regulator of universities of India. And no timeline of implementation of the New Education Policy has mentioned the implementation of legal education policies under the BCI.
The media has neglected the issue of legal education and its quality in India, even though the system of justice relies on legal education and lack of quality parameters in institutions in approval. The condition of the courts in India, especially lower courts, has been largely ignored.
But finally, the BCI has started talking about legal education reforms. Due to the dominance of a few elite classes and their law schools, the Indian Legal System, especially the Judiciary, has become populist, which is not a good sign for any justice system in the world.
India is in the churning phase of educational transformation, with the Covid lockdown, slowing down of businesses and rising unemployment. It is now imperative for legal education and other professional education systems to have policy reforms to make sure industry and academia are not de-synchronised.
Also, a few liberals in the Parliament love to criticise the Judiciary, even though they don’t form a part of legal fraternity. Thus, criticism outside the legal sphere must be highly checked upon.