Earlier this year, Legally India reported that NLU Orissa had plagiarised large chunks of its Self Study Report for the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC). However, with Kian being busy trying to monetise his newsletter and Prachi being so overworked by him that she has not had time to inform us of the result of her 2012 Law School RTI investigation, the duty of giving you more information on law schools and their misrepresentations to the NAAC has fallen to @lawschoolleaks .

Unlike Legally India, we have gone beyond just NLU O and here is what we found hidden in the law school NAAC Self Assessment Reports.

How many inmates can NALSAR and NLU O hostels hold exactly?

NALSAR in its Self Study Repot first claims on page 12 that its hostels have 286 girls and 251 boys but then later claims that “Actual Occupancy” is 181 girls and 215 boys in a bizzare table stretching betweem pages 145-146 which makes very little sense at all.

Screenshot of NALSAR Self Study Report page 12

(UPDATE: NALSAR Tables are infact accurate as to the number of occupants. Whether they are accurate as to the facilities provided is not yet verified.)

Screenshot of NALSAR Self Study Report pages 145-146

NLU Orrisa’s infamous NAAC Self Study Report also makes the exact same mistake. On page 19 it first mentions the number of inmates in its hostels as 490 boys and 270 girls only to then go on and mention the numbers as (215+140) 355 boys and 245 girls on a page 149 later in the report.

Screenshot of page 19 of NLU Orissa Self Study Report.

Screenshot of page 149 of NLU Orissa Self Study Report.

And while we are talking about this, why the hell does NAAC require the use of the word inamtes for hostel residents. ‘Inmates’ is most often used in the context of prisons. ‘Students’, ‘occupants’, ‘residents’ - there was no shortage of other words which they could have used.

Has it ever happened that GNLU managed to avoid controversy?

Last but not the least, the ever controversial GNLU administration seems to have been not entirely honest with their NAAC Self Assesment Report too. Page 9 of GNLU’s report gives a long list of facilities available in its Boys Hostel and Girls Hostel. This table on page 9 clearly states that Boys Hostel has both Single Occupancy Rooms as well as Double Occupancy Rooms. However, in the more detailed table on page 107 and 108, makes it clear that the Boys Hostel infact has no Single Rooms at all!

Screenshot from page 7 of the GNLU Self Study Report.

Screenshot from page 107-108 of the GNLU Self Study Report.

It is further rumoured that the GNLU Hostels do not even have the other facilities mentioned on page 7 such as a cafeteria or movie screenings within the boys hostel.

Reflections

The blatant errors in these Self Study Report bring to light the weaknesses of the NAAC Accreditation processes. The fact that atleast two of these institutions (NALSAR, & GNLU) have received an A grade, raises questions regarding whether the NAAC officials read these volumnous reports (each more than 200 pages) at all.

Help us!

All the mistakes mentioned in this post were apparent while taking an overview of each report. Who knows how many more misrepresentations shall come to light on a closer reading. If on reading the list of “facilities” in hostels as mentioned in the screenshots, you have reason to believe that there is misrepresentation, or if you also read the NAAC Self Study Reports and find more representations, do comment below and let us know about it.

Also if you have any inside information about your lawschool to leak, make sure you drop us an email at or better still, tweet or DM to us at @lawschoolleaks .

UPDATE: Earlier version of this blogpost sought to highlight inconsistencies in the NALSAR report. However, upon further examination and thanks to the comments it is clear that it was because of a misunderstanding of the table on page 145 and 146 of the NALSAR Report. The Total Column in the Table instead of giving absolute total occupancy figures, gives total occupancy figures separately for single rooms and double rooms. Apologies to NALSAR. NALSAR Tables are infact accurate as to the number of occupants. Whether they are accurate as to the facilities provided is not yet verified.