NLSIU Bangalore’s executive council (EC) on Saturday signed off on its permanent faculty recruitments, which had been long-pending due to the EC having been repeatedly postponed due to Covid-19 after interviews had been carried out.
These would also be NLSIU’s first permanent teacher recruitments in 12 years, following a notification for 13 positions, including two professors, one associate professor and 10 assistant professors (including two in social sciences).
Of course, the below names are just offers at this point and it does not necessarily mean that they will be accepted. Nevertheless, the fact that eight out of nine are graduates from NLS will likely make both students and the alumni network happy.
The notice for the positions were issued on 1 February, as we had first reported.
However, the process (as so many national law university processes do) had also attracted a writ petition and an ex parte stay order in February 2020, from an applicant for the post of assistant professor in law. It is understood that the stay was set aside, with certain conditions.
We have reached out to NLSIU vice-chancellor (VC) Prof Sudhir Krishnaswamy for comment.
All those who received offers whom we have contacted, either declined to comment or were unreachable for comment.
Offer for new NLS professor wings its way to NLU Delhi
NLSIU had been looking for two professors in its call for applicants, but we have not been able to authoritatively confirm whether a second professor appointment was made.
However, we understand from several sources with knowledge of the process, that NLU Delhi criminal law professor Mrinal Satish (a 2001 NLS LLB graduate and 2007 Yale University LLM).
According to his university profile, he teaches “criminal law, including advanced courses to students of the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes”, with his research interests including “sentencing, gender and the law, medical jurisprudence, empirical analysis of law, reproductive justice, excessive undertrial and pre-trial detention, and studying the impact of the criminal justice system in its interface with vulnerable and disempowered groups”.
Satish had returned to NLU Delhi in November 2019 after a year at the Delhi Judicial Academy (DJA).
Before that, he was executive director of NLU Delhi’s Centre for Constitutional Law, Policy and Governance since 2014.
NLS associate professor offers also goes to NLU D
For the associate professor position, we reliably understand that NLSIU has made an offer to NLU Delhi assistant prof Aparna Chandra.
She is a 2006 NLS LLB, 2007 Yale Law School LLM, and 2013 JSD also from Yale, and is research director of NLU Delhi’s Centre for Constitutional Law, Policy and Governance.
She teaches and researches on constitutional law, human rights, legal theory, gender and the law, and judicial process reform.
Lateral assistant professor offers:
We understand from sources with knowledge of the hires, that offers have been made to for at least four academics who are currently not teaching at NLSIU, to join its faculty:
- Jindal School of Liberal Arts & Humanities, which is part of JGLS Sonepat’s umbrella body associate professor Atreyee Majumder (NLS LLB 2006, 2014 Yale University PhD, at JGLS since January 2019).
- Shreya Shree, currently an independent researcher after nearly two years at NLU Delhi’s Centre for Constitutional Law, Policy and Governance (2015 NLS LLB, 2018 NLU Delhi LLM).
- Azim Premji University’s (APU) Sushmita Pati, who teaches law and governance there, as political science assistant professor (holding a BA in political science from Lady Shriram College of Delhi University, MA and MPhil in political studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) Delhi.
- Raag Yadava, who is a 2013 NLSIU LLB graduate and also famously its 2013 Jessup winner, and a Rhodes scholar to boot).
Clarification 9 July 2020: We understand that at least two of the candidates, Yadava and Chowhury, have both been offered positions on contract, rather than permanent positions.
Ad hoc NLS assistant professors to get contract
Another two ad hoc assistant professors, whose tenures had never been made permanent due to the long NLS permanent faculty hiring freeze, have also been made offers to become permanent assistant professors, with one having been made an offer on contract:
- NLS assistant professor of law (ad hoc) Sanyukta Chowdhury (2005 NLS LLB, National University Singapore (NUS) LLM) to join on contract.
- NLS assistant professor Kunal Ambasta (2012 NLS LLB, 2013 Berkeley LLM).
- NLS assistant professor of law (ad hoc) Rashmi Venkatesan (2007 NLS graduate, 2015 SOAS LLM).
Correction 9 July 2020: Contrary to our initial report and as pointed out in the comments, we understand that Chowdhury has been made an offer to join on contract, not as permanent faculty.
A formal hat-tip to all readers who have shared information with us regarding the recruitments.
Comments
Lol.
We really don't need more professors harping on so called human rights, gender and law, etc. Nothing against the subjects, even though they are often extremely one-sided, not intellectually rigorous, and don't really help one with lucrative career opportunities - which is an extremely important consideration for most of the students of law school. It would be great if colleges tried to proactively recruit former law firm partners, former officers of the SEBI/RBI, etc.
Obviously Sudhir will do best in his world- half of these people he has worked with before.
And academy everywhere usually has a liberal bent- but I don’t think one should turn away good professors because they work on public law
Lol. The only people who find corporate law intellectually rigorous are those into it -- that is, those incapable of other finer disciplines.
Intellectual rigor and all is debatable- I would say that to rise in the public law academic world takes a lot more intellectual rigor because there are so many people doing it.
Also, if "any random law graduate" can pursue corporate law, why are so many unable to get in? It's not as easy as you may think; it requires a lot of hard work, a fair bit of astuteness and mental sharpness, and attention to detail. It's not for everyone; in fact, precisely because of this (though there are other contributing factors at play), most grads can't last in corporate practice long enough to make a career out of it. It's not easy, and it's not for everyone. But any person can mug up a bunch of UN conventions and blame all of the world's ills on "oppression" and other Marxist and post-modernist jibber jabber.
I know several senior associates (year 10 and below) and partners who are mediocre at best and I don't say this with derision. Their understanding of their practice area is anecdotal and not based on a "thorough grounding in law". They have survived the life as other have quit for one reason or the other and surely they must be compensated for having lived / living a bad work-life balance. A large part of transactional law (in terms of time spent and value addition) is transaction management and risk reduction and, for that: common sense, appreciation of business risks / imperatives, and being able to say "sure you'll have that by tomorrow AM" at 10.30pm, is more critical than knowledge of legal principles.
Having said this, working in a law firm is never easy. The hardest part is the tedious nature of work and since there is a great diminishing marginal return on legal advise, mistakes are not acceptable. Not at 1pm or 1am or after having worked for 24hrs straight. This makes working in a firm particularly difficult. It also doesn't help that there is a self-selection of people who having nothing else in their life except work, which usually makes them toxic to deal with.
The rigors of the course prepare him for the rigors of any job.
The fact that you consider non corporate courses 'not intellectually rigorous' clearly shows you haven't been to law school.
But I did go to Law School, and work at one of the Big-4 law firms, so it would be good if you checked your presumptuousness.
Having said that, please do read the actual comment. My comment wasn't that "non-corporate courses" aren't intellectually rigorous, but that the specific subjects referred to are *often* not rigorous, and more problematically, do not help one obtain a lucrative career. There are plenty of subjects which are not corporate law that are extremely rigorous!
By the way friend, attention to detail is extremely important in any aspiring lawywer, as is the ability to not jump to conclusions without anything to back one up. I suggest you take a step back and assess where you stand on those fronts.
This is what Indian legal academia needs in the short run. In the long run more structural changes will be needed to make law schools productive and vaguely similar to the Western models. This is also an example of the right way to get alumni to their alma mater which is the norm in the West. All these alumni have completed their academic research, thesis and post-docs beyond NLS and proven their mettle and earned their experience outside, their return offers fresh perspective in scholarship as well as administration. This contrasts with the NUJS where entire cohorts of faculty are educated and groomed internally only to be appointed to tenure as a matter of course, often sitting on each others doctoral committees - a serious deficiency and breakdown of both ethics and propriety.
Philip G. Altbach, Maria Yudkevich & Laura E. Rumbley
Asia Pacific Education Review volume 16, pages317–330(2015)
"Our perspective is that faculty inbreeding is problematic and, where it exists, is often associated with a whole range of worrisome issues in relation to the academic and administrative functions of higher education institutions and systems. It limits the scope of hiring the best possible candidates for academic appointments—from both within the country and internationally. Inbreeding tends to entrench the academic culture already existing in the institutions where inbreeding occurs (Padilla 2008), and makes change and reform even more difficult than would normally be the case. It solidifies hierarchical relationships within departments and faculties and enhances the power of senior professors (e.g., Rocca 2007; Godechot and Louvet 2008). It may also create particularism—for example, in the form of applying preferential hiring or promotions standards for some (internal) colleagues or candidates—as opposed to universalism, which implies the same treatment for all (Blau 1973; Bridgeland 1982). Inbreeding may perpetuate unfair power dynamics reflected in society more broadly—and may be particularly detrimental to women and others traditionally excluded from academe (Wyer 1980; Pan 1993). New ideas, concerning the academic discipline as well as the organization of studies and the curriculum, may be more difficult to implement. This occurs because both faculty and administrators consider the status quo to be “natural” and beneficial, and their interests are squarely invested in established academic and administrative arrangements. In short, new perspectives and new relationships do not take hold as easily where inbreeding is prevalent, and departments, schools, and the entire university are less innovative and open (for various examples and discussion, see Smythe and Smythe 1944; Pelz and Andrews 1966; Velho and Krige 1984; Horta et al. 2007). In the twenty-first century, where knowledge is rapidly changing and increasingly globalized, inbreeding engenders traditionalism, which limits excellence and innovation."
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12564-015-9391-8
To be fair, its a little difficult to really call the current NLSIU hires a case of academic inbreeding simplistic (Personally, I would prefer not to call it so). Almost all of these hires have spent some years working outside NLSIU and proven their metal. they are already good academics, outside of NLSIU, who are being brought back to add value to the university. I think all of them will do good to the university.
Academic inbreeding pure and simple is a phenomenon more frequent at NUJS. Theres a decent number of people who have done all of their degrees at NUJS (in fact all the NUJS UGs who teach there have done their PG degrees from NUJS and are pursuing/ completed doctoral degrees there). There are also a decent number of faculty there who did their LL.M and Ph.Ds from NUJS and were hired there. that is something that should be alarming and provides a classic example of academic inbreeding. may be thats explaining the continuing fall that we see in NUJS ranks.
the question for me to ask is how to ensure that good people who did their UG from other law schools (like NALSAR, earlier batches of NUJS etc.) will be interested in applying to NLSIU and taking up jobs there. there are a decent number of them, excellent ones, who are pursuing academia and there's something to be addressed if NLSIU is not able to attract them. We don't know the reasons for why they are not applying (and I don't want to jump into any conclusions that its because of some impression that Sudhir will hire only people from NLSIU). Some brain storming on this would be worth it.
In either case I cannot emphasize enough, the power that faculty so enshrined onto the doctoral committee can wield on her colleagues. This could manifest in delays of a year or more in progression of a candidate. Personal grievances can spill over and result in unfavorable reviews that can cause loss of face and time to the affected faculty. Alternatively a poor candidate might get preferential treatment because of her friends (also colleagues) on the committee.
As an analogy, this is somewhat similar to the process of judicial appointments in India where judges selecting judges has come under criticism for its propensity to favor nepotism and breed inequality. Once again, such a system (for selection of judges) is frowned upon and does not exist in developed countries (the U.K. has an independent commission headed by a Professor of Medicine that does the selections).
As I have posted here before, this is one of many reasons why universities in Europe and the Americas do not permit faculty to enrol in their own degree programs (much less doctoral programs) while continuing as faculty. It has come as something of a surprise to me that readers of this newspaper believe there is nothing of concern in this arrangement.
1. NLSIU
2. Don't bother
3. Don't bother.
4. OK, maybe Nalsar.
(Btw takes 25-30 odd mins to reach Dwarka from CP on the Airport Express)
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/covid-19-pandemic-is-not-even-close-to-being-over-says-who-chief-2254208?pfrom=home-topscroll
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/new-swine-flu-with-pandemic-potential-discovered-in-china-2254227?pfrom=home-topscroll
1. Sudhir will hire alumni: TRUE
2. Faculty will be leaving NLUD and JGLS: TRUE
3. Lizzie will run off to another NLU: TRUE
4. NLSIU will not implement domicile quota this year despite the govt order: TRUE
5. NLSIU alumni and students may mount a challenge against the quota: UNPROVEN
6. NLSIU is lobbying with Karnataka to apply for National Importance status: UNPROVEN
Kian seems to have jumped the gun and pre-emptively carried this report. It might have put candidates already working at other institutions in a tight spot vis-a-vis their current employers. The decent thing to do would have been to wait for an official statement.
The problem with the older lot of administrators was that they deliberately overlooked candidates who wouldn’t serve their political interests/ weren’t from the same community etc- is there any proof or even rumour of Sudhir having done the same?
NLUD students have already realised this. It's high time others follow.
If 8 out of 9 offers are indeed law school alumni the whole appointment process is pretty much a sham and Sudhir is in the same mould as RVR. It is not only unfair to non-law schoolities but ironically is unfair to aspiring teachers who have graduated from other NLUS since this effectively closes the doors on their entry to law school for the next few years.
Speaking as a lawyer I do not believe this appointment will stand scrutiny by a court. For all his scholarship Sudhir has been careless in achieving his desire to get alumni, ignoring basic tenets of probity and bitten off more than he can chew.
I strongly disagree with your questioning of the legality of the selection process, simply because most of the selected candidates happen to be NLSIU alumni. If any of the unsuccessful applicants in this round do decide to file a writ (probably in Karnataka HC), then it will fail, because there are really no formal legal objections that can be mounted here.
Let us first consider the selection process. The vacancies were advertised on February 1, 2020 and the shortlisted candidates were interviewed later that month (February 18, 19, 20 if I recall correctly). The shortlisting for the interviews was done on the basis of criteria laid down in the applicable UGC Regulations. There is nothing to suggest that there was anything amiss in the interviews. In fact, the Selection Committee for the Law positions consisted of credible external members such as Dr. N.S. Gopalakrishnan, Dr. Kamala Sankaran and Dr. Poonam Saxena. It stands to reason that the Selection Committee would have recorded its reasons for prioritising certain candidates. Usually, such selection committees are asked to award scores under the applicable criterion. The recommendations made by the Selection Committee in February 2020 have now been considered and approved by the NLSIU Executive Council (EC) in its meeting held on June 27, 2020. So even if a judicial challenge is instituted, what do you expect the court to do? No sensible judge/bench is going to scrutinise the full record and second-guess the selections, since the laid down processes have been followed to the letter.
Even if one looks at the names and profiles of the candidates mentioned in this story, all of them have credible qualifications and track-records. There might in fact be some more names which have not been picked up by the whisper networks. As I had said in another comment in this thread, Kian Ganz should have waited for an official statement from NLSIU before publishing these names.
Have you considered the possibility that the selected candidates may have simply been picked because they have stronger records in teaching and research when compared to their competitors? This list is definitely far better than the very large pool of incompetent ad-hoc teachers accumulated during the RVR years. Most of them were there simply by virtue of personal proximity to a few Senior Professors or through servility shown at the right times. I gathered that several of them have already left for other institutions since Sudhir Krishnaswamy joined as Vice-Chancellor in September 2019. A few others applied in this selection process and finally faced serious scrutiny after several years of receiving bad feedback from students and publishing in predatory journals. So the length of experience as an ad-hoc teacher does not mean that they have an automatic right to permanent positions. Their annual contacts say so in explicit terms. The few good ones (at least the 3 names mentioned here) have been suitably given better service-conditions. So Sudhir is actually cleaning up the mess left by his predecessor.
If any of the unsuccessful applicants are reading these comments, please do not make the mistake of filing frivolous cases against this selection process. You will only be wasting your own time and money, which is better spent in looking for jobs at other institutions. I say this as someone who has seen these selection processes (both as an applicant and an interviewer) for nearly two decades.
That said, given that the institution in question is NLSIU, such posters need to rethink whether the 'in-breeding' might just be due to competence.
Again, that said, I hope the entire list isn't people from NLSIU as the optics would be bad. Any perceived bias in favour of in-house candidates may turn away genuinely good people, who aren't alumni, from applying in the future. And that would lead towards real 'in-breeding' warned about in the books quoted above.
Interesting Comment. If these numbers are accurate, superficially at least the appointment process seems prone to be set aside. It is a fit example of an act lacking the appearance of fairness and that in itself is sufficient for annulment.
1) NLSIU: Names given above + Sudhir and Sarasu.
Verdict: Gold medal. Undisputed #1, no contest.
2) NALSAR: Only Sid Chauhan from NLSIU is a tier 1 NLU grad. Others are from lesser NLUs, such as NUJS (1 person), NLIU (1 person) and NLUJ (1 person). One is from HNLU, which is not even top 10 these days. However, the NUJS and NLUJ profs can possibly be upgraded to tier 1 status, since one has was worked in a top firm and has an LLM from a good UK university, while another has an LLM and PhD from a good European university.
Verdict: Good relative to other NLUs and possibly 3 profs with tier 1 status, but still below NLSIU. Deserves silver medal, but a distant #2.
3) NLUJ: 2 NLUJ alum, 1 GNLU alum and 2 HNLU alum, one of whom has an LLM with distinction from a good UK university.
Verdict: Bronze, but can easily bridge the gap with NALSAR with a few strategic hires.
4) NLUD: Lots of misleading propaganda posted by students. Website also seems to have incorrect info. It seems only 1 NLU grad teaches there as of now (Anoop Surendranath from NALSAR).
Verdict: Disqualified for cheating.
5) NUJS: What a joke! Former faculty are still listed as teaching and bios of most faculty are missing. Only Saurabh Bhattacharya seems to be a tier 1 NLU grad (NALSAR), while rest have done LLB, LLM and PhD all from NUJS, which is not at all a positive sign.
Verdict: Disqualified for cheating and incomplete info.
Based on the above, law aspirants should place NLSIU>NALSAR>NLUJ>NLUD>NUJS as their preference list in terms of faculty.
Daniel - NLS LL.M alum, though undoubtedly very good.
Chinmayi - has been away for more than 2 years. Latest news is she is doing her PhD abroad. Isn't likely to come back anytime soon. Was on contract anyway so it isn't likely that she still holds or will hold a position at nlud after that length of time.
Anikta - doesn't teach, at least not independently. [...]
Arul - NALSAR LL. M and Max Planck PhD. Is very good.
Neeraj - is not from HNLU. Did his LL. M from ILI. Doesn't have a PhD.
So no, NLUD does not remain at the top in terms of faculty qualifications. That said, it does have some very good faculty, who are very good even if they don't have fancy degrees. But the number of good faculty are dwindling, and have been for some time. In my time, nlud had babu Mathew, sitharam, Mrinal, Aparna, Akila, Chinmayi, and Neha in addition to the ones there now. All of them have now left. Chinmayi left for higher studies and it is in the nature of the field that such attrition takes place. But for all others - nlud couldn't retain them. I don't know why Mrinal and Aparna are leaving. Sure Sudhir might be exciting, but RS seems to have given them a fairly free hand in doing their own thing at NLUD too. I know some of the ones remaining are also considering moving. Instead of burying our heads in the sand, we should be asking why people don't want to stay. I suspect the answer will be as uncomfortable for the current lot of students as it will be for the admin.
It is true that we have fantastic people offering seminar courses to the fourth and fifth years. But hardly any good teachers in the first 3 years apart from Anup, Sophy, Neeraj (pretty decent). And there is no point talking about one time guest lectures, it is as good as a YouTube lecture. Plus we really have not had more than maybe 3 good lectures in the last 2 years Even when SY Qureshi or Gopal Subramaniam came, not more than 50 and 100 (for the latter) students turned up.
I enjoyed my time at NLUD, but let us not beef up irrelevant information. If you were to say that we have fantastic people like YP, Arul, AK Rai, I understand.
NLSIU is an autonomous but State Government owned Law School, So all Government rules for recruitment including reservations (50%) must apply. NLSIU should not be able to prefer thier own alumni with top degrees from abroad or worked at top places over local LLM students. (In any way they cannot prefer)
Since the University comes under the definition of (State) they should only be allowed to recruit via proper procedures. It's not a Private Law School and more than that these are for permanent jobs not contractual ones.
If you see the list, it's full of people who have foreign degrees and Top 6 NLU UG degrees. It's okay for a private University to prefer a Top NLU LLB/FOREIGN LLM degree candidate. But NLSIU cannot, as it will be arbitrary. Equal opportunity in recruitment is a must, especially in a Government job.
A local LLM guy may not be preferred when it comes to Jindal. But in NLSIU LLM Guy's should be = to Foreign LLM Grads. Recruitment to a Government job is not a joke. And it cannot be based on arbitrary criterion.
NLSIU is under no obligation to reserve faculty positions for applicants who have done their LL.M. or Ph.D. in Karnataka. Why should the institution not recruit the best possible pool? Even if you want regional representation for symbolic reasons, please examine the names mentioned in this report.
At least 4 out of these 9 people have been born in Karnataka and pursued most of their education (upto B.A., LL.B.) in the same State, before going outside for higher education and professional opportunities. At least 2 others have now lived in Karnataka for more than 10+ years and would be eligible under the ordinary domicile rules. Only 3 names (who are all NLSIU LL.B. graduates and have spent at least five years in Karnataka) come from other States. So the principle of regional representation has been respected in spirit and substance.
To give offer letters this is not a private law firm where if the management feels a person is good, he can be selected. This is a job in a state owned body. So, proper guidelines should be followed.
A person who studied LLM in Harvard or Oxford can be prefered over someone who studied in Rizvi Law College by Jindal or such private school.
But when it comes to NLSIU or any NLU autonomous or not, it's illegal to give preference for college. In NLSIU recruitment a guy from Rizviv(LLM) should be equal = Harvard. Because there cannot be any arbitrary factor when it comes to permanent appointment for a Government job. This list shows that they preferred some of thier graduates to others, even that is illegal.
Any permanent job vacancy should be advertised to the public and everyone should have equal access to the appointment. Brownie points cannot be given for studying in a Top 3 NLU/ Ivy League LLM or even winning the Jessup. It's a Government recruitment. Maybe in a private set up these can be criteria. Not for a Government job.
A Writ petition is more than enough to stop this elitist appointment.
I hope you understood.
So if candidates have been selected after following the established procedures, I don't really understand your objections. It seems that you are trying to encourage unsuccessful applicants to initiate frivolous litigation against the University. Under the present circumstances, that is very bad advice. In any case you seem to be unaware of both the law and facts that are in issue.
Justice should not only be done, but all be seen to be done wali baat hai. Ab jo samajhna chahta hai, woh samajh gaya hai. Not saying it is definitely wrong, but it sure seems so. Plus, in-breeding issues as highlighted previously.
And as things stand law schools are not the most transparent bodies that provide all this information on who scores how much at what criterion. So it’s not exactly unfair criticism. It’s perhaps a little hasty- but it’s not unfair.
I know other NLU alumni who applied who haven’t heard back - and they were plenty qualified so one does have to wonder if [...] just went with people [...] knew.