Madras High Court raps colleges selling law degrees'

Chennai: Perturbed over the increase in number of new law colleges and sale of law degrees to unqualified persons,  the Madras high court has observed,  “Many persons roaming in the corridors of the court, one fine day, take the avatar of an ‘advocate’. This only proves the fact that many law colleges are selling law degrees to unqualified persons and it is evident that anybody can procure a law degree, without even attending classes. This is nothing but fraud”.

Upholding the enrolment rules of  Bar Council of Tamil Nadu, a Division Bench comprising Justices V. Ramasubramanian and N. Kirubakaran said this kind of procuring law degrees fraudulently has to be prevented by Bar Council and action should be taken against those colleges for selling degrees or conferring degrees on  people, who do not even attend classes. It was to be  pondered over as to whether it would be possible to get B.E degree or MBBS degree in this way, the Bench added.

The Bench said, “It is a shame on the part of the Bar Council to remain a mute spectator to selling of law degrees by letter pad colleges. Urgent remedial steps have to be taken to contain this menace, otherwise, criminal elements and undesirous people would hijack the very system itself and in fact, criminalisation of Bar has already started”.

The presence of number of colleges and the competition prevailing to get students admitted for the sake of money were the factors responsible for the present situation.

The bench said as on date, there were about 1,200 law colleges in India as against 800 two years ago. Surprisingly, 92 colleges were approved by Bar Council of India (BCI) in 2014 and in effect, for every three days, BCI accredited one new college.

While granting permission to start a new college, BCI was supposed to consider the demand and supply, and thereafter, decide about granting of permission.