The law ministry is planning to start up an Indian Legal Service (ILS) styled along the lines of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) in a bid to entice top law graduates away from high-paying corporate law firms.
Law minister Veerappa Moily will shortly announce a scheme to introduce a national written and oral exam styled along the lines of other civil services entrance exams, according to Indian national papers Indian Express and the Financial Express.
Moily told the Indian Express: “Our wish is to have the best young legal brains working for the government in different capacities. Not all bright lawyers want to join law firms and shun courts. The ILS will give such lawyers an opportunity to work for the government in good positions.”
An unnamed law ministry source told the Financial Express: “The law ministry has already finalised the framework for the ILS. The UPSC will hold a written exam, followed by viva voce on the same pattern as the civil services examination. Our aim is to have at least 60 ILS officers every year,” said a law ministry functionary.”
“Basically, the aim is to have these officers be our lawyers in various courts as well as give tender legal advice to the government. In order to make the service more lucrative, we also hope to provide for a way for ILS officers to join the higher judiciary on the same pattern as district and sessions judges,” added the source.
ILS officers would have the opportunity to become legal advisers to the central and state governments.
The papers did not report on whether pay-levels of ILS officers would be on par with private practice.
Comments
But govt. should also do "Something" good for Law schools as it does for IITs! :|
I would like to add that N'nal Law Schools should be made central educational institutions like IIMs and IITs...this is extremely urgent in the light of more and more State Governments pressing for reservations based on state domicile.
Further the questions that are generally asked in UPSC exams for law papers are to say the least is not challenging. They are generally pure memory game. needless to say when you are in profession or actually practisitng the game reverses and its all your small little minds application rather than its capacity to store junk that becomes relevant. Accordingly the exam should also be application based rather than a memory test.
the ILS was proposed in the 1970s and it's supposed to coem into force now. i guess this means that the other major reform, i.e. foreign law firms, will be implemented in 2040 approx.
@kian; Please edit the post, if possible, as it's read by many prospective law students who would be ill informed if they don't know that such a body already exists.