The Karnataka high court has ordered NLSIU Bangalore not to finalise the first permanent recruitment of faculty in 12 years, which we had reported on 1 February.
According to Bar & Bench, high court Justice SG Pandit had passed an interim, ex parte order on 14 February that:
The respondent no. 1 is directed not to finalize the selection in pursuance of Annexure G, Notification bearing No. 1/2020, dated 1.02.2020 and Annexure H, Notification bearing No. 2/2022 dated 1.02.2020 and not to issue appointment letter without permission.
The challenge was filed by advocate Pratapsing Jadhav, who is resident in Hubballi in Karnataka and according to the order has “applied for the post of Assistant Professor in Constitutional Law”.
It is understood that since the order was passed without hearing NLSIU, the law school will contest the order by the single judge as the recruitment process continues.
The grounds for the petition appears to have been that NLSIU’s notification was “vague” regarding minimum qualifications required for applicants and that reservations were “not forthcoming” (according to the notification, one assistant professor each out of eight positions in law had been reserved for SC and ST category candidates respectively).
Comments
This person won’t lose out on the job because the ad was “vague”. He will lose out cause he simply wouldn’t hold a candle to the kind of talent that is out there.
Your question is the principled one - mine focused on the empirical reality of the petitioners profile and the impact on nls students who will probably face a faculty crunch for yet another trimester.
Both are valid. You don’t get to invalidate mine because it doesn’t suit you.
https://in.linkedin.com/in/pratapsing-jadhav-4b85b4134
There is so much to unpack here. The likes of Alan Dershowitz, Lessig and Zittrain were appointed without doctoral qualifications, and I am not going into the merits of whether it should be done or not. You see, the USA has a specific culture of non-conformity to rules: a particular case in point is academic journals, most of which (including the Harvard Law Review) are student-edited and reviewed. Academia in the USA required publications in the USA because of the particular requirements that need your publication to look 'cool' before a 3rd year JD student. That is a "system" while here Sudhir's action is an isolated scenario. In the USA, you do not need qualifications to be a judge (they are elected), nor to become civil servants (they are nominated and there is no equivalent of an IAS/IFS). That entire system works like that. Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing is your call.
You cannot just ignore that everything else is different in India, and when rules are waved in a completely different context (which may lead to completely different results than in the USA) that NLSIU will suddenly have Lawrence Lessig-type people applying for an Assistant Professorship. With vague rules, comes arbitrariness in India and good luck getting the likes of Lessig and Zittrain to teach at NLSIU. Although comments at LI, seem to suggest that NLSIU >> Harvard + Yale >> Oxbridge >> NYU, I would say NLSIU is a little less established than Harvard.
If this is the level of reading comprehension I don’t want to be associated with you either.
Please share with me the citation of any article published by Pratapsing Jadhav in any journal. Thanks.
https://twitter.com/ananth1148
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/74216987.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst
High time NIRF/law aspirants/public/media judge law schools on women's safety rather than just placements.
[img]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ERMjyGLU8AApCTg.jpg[/img]
[img]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ERMjzK8U0AAHCHg.jpg[/img]
1) NLU Internationals: NLU grads with foreign LLMs/PhD. Most elite caste. Often upper caste, light-skinned, born to privileged backgrounds and married to similar versions of themselves. However, will insist on being woke, wear Fabindia kurtas and espouse causes of dalits and minorities.
2) NLU Desis: NLU grads who did their LLMs and PhDs in India, instead of going abroad. A rare species among top ranked NLUs, more common among lower ranked NLUs. Stayed back in India either because: a) they are patriotic and do grassroots human rights work in villages, or b) their CVs were not good enough to get a scholarship abroad. Second-most elite caste.
3) TLC Internationals: Traditional Law College grads who did their LLM/PhD abroad. Often, these are people who do an LLM at an NLU and use that as a stepping stone towards a second LLM abroad. However, since they do not have BALLB degrees from NLUs, NLU Desis and NLU Internationals do not allow them into their caste. Will often mention on LinkedIn that hey have foreign LLMs/PhDs, but will not reveal where they did their BALLBs from.
4) TLC Desis: BALLB, LLM, PhD all from Marathwada University, Nagpur University, North Bengal University etc. Often deeply insecure and resentful, and cruelly mocked by students for speaking in vernacular-accented English.
You can easily guess which castes are posting which comments on LI.
Kian, please go ahead and justify how your 'objective' editorial model and filtration allow trash like this to come through, and what great good it serves the readers to be exposed to this. In the past, you have tried to trivialise comments of this sort, even dubbing them 'irreverent and good humour', but this more or less takes the cake. You may eventually get around to moderating it or even removing it, but any person who allowed it to get published to begin with is either a bigot himself or sufficiently desensitized so as to allow anything or everything for the sake of hits. Congratulations to you and the sort of readers this model would attract undoubtedly in this era. I for one am leaving this forum henceforth and would treat LI like the yellow journalism rag that it has turned into. Good day!
https://www.deccanherald.com/city/top-bengaluru-stories/nlsiu-looks-for-deal-with-govt-on-local-quota-battle-80
Are some NLU students entitled ? Yes- as are students who graduated from amity and campus law centre. To write off all of them.
If you are in an NLU and this is your perception- I’m afraid you’re having some real issues with those around you and reacting to that. A better course might be to examine how you can be a better ambassador and how you can improve the institution than to curse out students on message boards.
That guy was clearly responding to comments arguing NLU students were no better ( and indeed worse) than students from other indian law colleges. Who said that was enough or all one aspired to? Whatever way you want to bend it- your argument is still baseless.
Atleast there are things like IDIA that help less privileged students access NLUs- and at least the admissions system is transparent enough to allow for some social mobility. Especially after the CLAT came into place the demographic of NLUs changed radically to include more first generation lawyers and first gen college graduates.
NLU students aren’t any more privileged because of peer group and alumni than any other university. If the peer group and alumni are so superior some of it has to be because NLU students work harder before, during and after law school no?
There are obviously still problems to be fixed- but not as much wirh the student body as with those holding back progressive reform( see old guard). Your animosity toward NLU students is fairly baseless methinks.
At which point O.P. decided it was wise to ask if traditional law colleges hadn’t done the same - moving the goal post to the question of comparison. When people argue that because of their achievements in research and yes moots and day zero numbers- NLU students have indeed done better than traditional law school students and aren’t actually all entitled and lazy- the goal posts magically shift to but NLUs are not as good as Harvard.
One can hardly call it a constructive argument when the question keeps getting changed no? How is one supposed to address these concerns if they are never coherent?
If you’re actually interested in knowing about some of the contributions even graduates of nlsiu have made I would suggest that you read Menon Neelakantan and maliks “idea of law school”. Each of the chapters is written by an alumnus and paints a picture of cautious hope for what NLU students can achieve. The preface does some work in listing out some of the work done by alumni in more detail.
I will go further than I have so far and say that - as someone who graduated a few years ago and recently went back to law school- I have more hope than ever. Diversity in and access to law schools have only grown because of things like IDIA- and the students today are brighter, smarter, and better people than they were in my times.
I’m not disparaging students from out of the NLU system at all- I have met more than my share of all around excellent people from those places. But sympathy for the limited opportunities some of them seem to face does not need to result in insulting students from the NLU system at all.
And from national level parties to chaiwallahs there are sexual harassment complaints everywhere. Women suffer everywhere- it’s not the NLU system is a larger culture of misogyny. The fact that survivors within the NLU system have found the courage to speak out is wonderful - and I’m hoping more is done to enable that. It takes sunlight to see the rot.
I will go further - some of the stuff that a few teachers are doing here - even hls/Oxbridge doesn’t have an equivalent. Does that mean all is well? Ofcourse not! Majority of the faculty are horrible at their jobs and they don’t care at all- are they still subject to more discipline than in an average non NLU indian uni? Yeah. Should they be weeded out for the better? Definitely.
Ofcourse students are obsessed with CV building and getting a job when in law school - most of them (post clat) come from humble backgrounds and have taken on loans to pay for college- they want to be able to pay those loans back. But there are studies to show that after the first few years- a lot of those students leave the big law jobs they have and go find passion projects- whether is photography or music or helping animals or building a private practice. Anecdotally I could tell you that about 80% of the people who got those big Corp jobs at the end of law school have given them up to find more meaningful things to do. They do learn to be good people- I know many people who came into law school having horrible views that justified genocides and racial supremacy and who left to jobs where they handheld child rape victims through their trials.
You can recognise that there are problems with NLUs and ways to improve them without insulting students and those within the system who are trying to make it work. If you knew Menon and instead of learning institution building all you learnt was to whine and complain and tear others down on internet comment sections - that’s such a waste!
I know being in an NLU can be a frustrating time as a student and it is easy to think you’re the only one who has good intentions/ ideas- but a few years out and most of your entitled undeserving classmates will - without the pressure of having to find a job- turn out to be wonderful people.
And entitled people are entitled everywhere - I’ve met jnu / du/ amity/ Christ people who have been just as entitled if not more.
In short - why throw out the baby with the bath water?
Where exactly in my words am I saying there are no problems? I am only saying that not all is rotten at the NLUs - and there is a great deal of reason to hope for better and to work toward it rather than the “burn it all” philosophy espoused by the previous commenter. I acknowledge the problems - I actually work in my real life to fix those problems. I don’t think it’s right to just rage at students and call them entitled and lazy and all other names in the book when all they did wrong was to do well on an exam. And I don’t think it’s right to give up on institutions that can still be improved and changed.
When I was in law school people didn’t talk about rape- they didn’t talk about caste atrocities committed on campus. Now I can walk around campus and see photos of Ambedkar and I can hear women organising and meeting and strategising and pushing back against the misogynistic culture we live in. That is reason enough for hope. But it certainly doesn’t mean I have my head in the sand. Perhaps you’re missing the trees for the woods.
Law school didn’t hire faculty for really long yes! But the students finally learnt how to not care about short term self interest and protested and the guy who got hired did put out an ad for hiring people ( whatever it’s problems).
And sure people in the industry and more senior folk are disappointed with new batches - when are they ever happy with new batches ? Why would they be happy when the industry is so casteist and sexist and these new students have new ideas and are unafraid to speak out? I think it’s very easy and lazy to talk about how the new kids aren’t as good as the old ones- I take a long view of these things and I think if you compare the new kids to older batches when they were just starting out - you would be more impressed than not- and we both only have anecdotal evidence on any of this - so why does your anecdote trump mine?
How am I whining? No really explain this to me . Am I the one - apropos of nothing- calling people lazy and incompetent and all sorts of other names? Am I the one talking about how nothing good can ever come out of the NLU system? Am I the one needlessly comparing NLUs with other law universities? I really don’t get it.
I don’t understand what is happening on this thread and why it is suddenly trendy to hate all things nlu? You guys do realise that the best endorsement for the NLUs being the best of the options in India comes from the fact that so many students work so hard to get in? And that so many people would apply to work there? institution building does not come from self loathing - it comes from carefully evaluating where you are and where you need to go and then actually doing the work.
And lastly- you will also notice that I- unlike you- did not resort to ad hominem in my replies- instead I focused on the matter at hand- something my law school education taught me to do :)
1. How is the judiciary a forum to approach for legislative lobbying?
2. If there is an explanation to the above, so are we as a nation, then now abandoning the [i]trias politica[/i] (separation of powers) system?
This is not only morally objectionable as a lawyer, it is also an extremely bad precedent if this is actually coming from NLSIU, god's own law school.
P.S. Note for the grammar nazis: god is spelt as god, not God, for polytheistic religions. For polytheistic religions, 'god' is a common noun (we have a lot of gods), and for monotheistic religions 'God' is a proper noun (it refers to a specific person/being).
Need better and less versatile (genius) speech writers for all of them. Then again, we now know the era of executive court has begun.
Exactly what were the great things done in the last 18 months to fix responsibility for the malpractices investigated by Justice Gohli? That Report clearly named the individuals both teaching and non-teaching staffs. The VC here is admitting that things were seriously wrong in the examination department. Again, if the accounts dept was being shady, why haven't heads rolled?
VK may not have been the Registrar when Rao was the VC. But the former was a senior Prof who had influence, position and standing to quietly (not so quietly) caution the NLSIU administration against the corruption that Messiah is papering over. To allow evil to fester through supposed "inaction" is also evil, esp for powerful old guards such as VK
Are you to decide which one of us “deserve” things now?
See I thought people worked hard invested time and resources into cracking this impossible exam and then got very very lucky. But clearly a fairer system would be one where you decided who deserved to get in and who can be branded a cheater not because there is any proof of successful cheating but because they were “undeserving”.
And law school students are the entitled ones?
Also I’m sorry but the idea that “educated people” behave a certain way certainly doesn’t find the best ambassadors when both sides seem so guilty of the same crimes- regardless of motivation.
And the idea that a whole group of people can be judged to not “deserve” the education they have earned- by anonymous comments on a message board - that’s just so so messed up! It indicates a lot of resentment and little else intellectual contribution.
You can attack me all you like - I’m not even one of the people on this board who has indulged in name calling but sure- if that makes you feel better :)
I guess as with Justice Talukdar who "knew nothing" when NUJS students confronted him regarding NUJS Amendment Bill 2018, Messiah too "knew nothing"
All hail Messiah. That's how lawyers (and aspiring judges should be).
What happened to the NLS faculty recruitment? Who all were selected? Has the Court order been stayed or is it still operational?
All these public universities could do with some transparency and accountability.
The case filed in Dharwad was a frivolous one. There is no obligation to explicitly state the applicable UGC Regulations in the cover page of the advertisement. Being a State University, NLSIU is bound to follow the UGC Regulations for shortlisting candidates and conducting the interviews. The rules have been followed to the letter.
Kian you have been missing quite a few stories
https://www.barandbench.com/news/litigation/calcutta-hc-division-bench-stays-2016-dismissal-of-ex-nujs-registrar-surajit-chandra-mukhopadhyay
https://www.barandbench.com/news/lawschools/nujs-releases-the-diversity-report-2019-an-attempt-to-map-the-fields-of-diversity-pluralism-exclusions
Also I have heard this from quite a few reliable sources that the Income Tax department has not only slapped a whopping Rs 7.7 crores demand but has also attached all bank accounts of NUJS to recover the aforementioned amount. NUJS has apparently filed a writ petition in the High Court for a stay order. Interestingly, it comes before Justice Shekhar Bobby Saraf, the first NLS alum to be appointed a HC judge. The WP comes up on Monday.
1. An NLSIU alum teaching at a tier 1 NLU, at assistant prof level (without PhD). Has applied for associate prof.
2. An NLSIU alum teaching at a leading private law school, at associate prof level (with PhD). Has applied for full prof.
3. An NLSIU alum teaching at an IIT, at assistant prof level (with PhD). Has applied for full prof (i.e. skipping associate prof).
4. An alum of a tier 3 NLU teaching at a tier 1 NLU, at assistant prof level (without PhD). Has applied for associate prof .
5. An alum of a tier 2 NLU teaching at a leading private law school, at associate prof (with PhD). Has applied for full prof.
All the above have publications, good work ex and NLU backgrounds, but are being fiercely opposed by the TLC lobby.
Very much doubt the "Centre" even knows because if things were politically motivated things would have moved very differently. It appears that IT after several run-ins with NUJS over the years had enough and moved to attach the accounts.
IT did not even have full details of the multiple accounts NUJS had with Corporation Bank and elsewhere. The Bank which got a sweet deal from the dear VC recently, played its part to stall the attachment. Hence (and thankfully) several accounts remained operational.
This is an issue of taxes not being deposited in a timely manner including when grace period was allowed. There are whispers that the actual f**k up in accounts took place when "creative accounting" involving a big portion of UGC funds was not done well.
Due to SJA pressure, Prof Bhat had to allow Justice NN Mathur and later Justice PN Sinha to conduct inquiries. Prof Surajit Mukhopadhyay was finally fired but some other were quietly allowed to go. Certain Dam(ned) souls were never investigated further for reasons university and EC knows best. Things never really settled down well. And then Prof Bhat and Dr SA Khan were ejected.
Maybe, as someone seemingly suggested, this is a pedestrian issue that has been overblown by the IT. Wonder why they didn't attach bank accounts when NUJS kept tripping over the years. And why did Accounts, VC and Registrar offices not bring these up in FC and EC meetings as and when the IT folks kept sending notices.
Then again, why care? Every year the fees go up. We pay and eat the same shit.
Spot on. NUJS has the most useless student body of all the NLUs.
1. NLSIU domicile quota: Is it finally happening or not?
2. NLSIU faculty recruitment: Who has applied? Who is the mysterious person who filed a PIL? A proxy for certain lobbies?
3. NLUD VC selection: Why the delay of so many months? Lobbying to keep Srividhya out?
4. NLUD domicile quota: Are the students challenging it?
5. NALSAR 85% domicile quota: What is the status? Telangana Congress keeps pushing for it.
https://www.siasat.com/congress-demands-implementation-obc-quota-law-universities-1799049/
6. Meenakshi Lekhi NLU Bill: What does the bill say and what is the status? Someone on LI comments shared this newspaper article on this bill, but we need to see a copy of it.
epaper.thestatesman.com/2551590/Kolkata-The-Statesman/13TH-FEBRUARY-2020#page/16/1
2. Several. The good, the bad and the ugly. Basically, the usual. We can hope the good would be selected. People are lobbying hard for their candidates, obviously, the old timers and the new. The case is going to peter out.
3. Delhi Judiciary and bureaucrats are now busy with other staff more important, including the EC members. The main delay was for the elections. This should be finalised by end of this month.
4. No.
5. Not anytime soon. Incrementally, maybe over the years.
6. Unimportant. It's not happening during this tenure. Maybe after 2024.
The old AO has been handsomely retained as a "Consultant" by our trusted VC so that the latter can complete the crores deep creative accounting. That includes Rs 5 crore refund to UGC (for Plan XI) and clearing Plan XII utilization certificate of ticking bombs; reconciliation of accounts with bank statements that wasn't done for years (apparently because Corporation Bank had systems upgrade and then our Tally got "corrupt". Don't ask me how those niggles lasted for years); clearing up the massive mess with endowment funds; and yes setting up things so that more "deals" can continue with greater finesse.
Why object to the old man being retained now when he was being even more handsomely retained all these years on ad hoc basis by Prof Bhat and the great Lord Talukdar and we kept taking the blame for "losing" bills that AO and his cronies evaporated in the first place.
Surajit was caught and fired only after dogged pursuit by the SJA. The very same SJA then lost steam. Hence things pretty much ended with Surajit alone taking the fall. Despite his termination here, he remains gainfully employed https://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2019/03/sexual-harassment-fraud-and-other-criminal-activities-in-amity-university-chhattisgarh/
Maybe something like this happened with taxes here https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/rs-1-cr-fraud-lens-on-institute-staffer/articleshow/74431818.cms Things will truly change only when we students, as the biggest financiers of our own exploitation, decide to stop eating and accepting shit. This will certainly require sacrifices that most of us are unwilling to make. And so the band plays on.
Our VC who strongly believes in not convening an EC if the Chancellor's nominee is unavailable, had little trouble in convening a "special EC" in Nov 2019 to discuss the "great" URC report. Soon, while we are away on recess, our honourable VC and his friends will conduct a (shambolic) faculty recruitment. To ward off any scrutiny, some bells and whistles may get hired.
Although continuous SJA pressure got the VC to belatedly "discuss" the URC, this also tells us that no one in authority is really serious about URC, how the URC goes about its business and the implementation process. Blaming SJA continuously doesn't help when it clearly lacks the levers that matter. Also how can a band of 30 students or so pull the weight of 600 indifferent souls?
SJA leadership quality depends on us. With our vote. Whether SJA office bearers this time will be mostly lapdogs faking as laptop warriors intermittently, only time will tell.
I am not sure if SJA is useless. It is what we want it to be. The buck stops with us.
https://www.legallyindia.com/lawschools/nujs-loses-london-phd-to-nlu-j-after-bureaucracy-dispute-post-mp-singh-20120618-2897
https://theprint.in/india/modi-govt-ministers-prefer-oxford-harvard-for-their-childrens-education-and-not-iit-iim/369180/
For other details, I guess one can check through alumni or other sources in Calcutta High Court.
https://www.livemint.com/politics/news/un-high-commissioner-seeks-sc-intervention-in-citizenship-amendment-act-11583226043265.html