The West Bengal government has quietly passed its long-pending amendment to the NUJS Kolkata establishing statute, formalising a 30% local domicile reservation.
It is not yet sure whether this would take effect from this year or only from next year, since the CLAT preferences and allotments are already in progress.
It is understood that the Executive Council is yet to take a final decision on this.
The gazetted notification, dated 21 May 2019 and assented by the WB governor, has also removed autonomy from the university to set tuition fees, which will instead now be determined by the state government.
An additional stipulation requires free tuition for students from poorer backgrounds, which would be defined by the state government:
The University shall allow free-ship [sic] in tuition fees to at least five per centum [sic] of their total strength to students belonging to poor and economically backward classes.
As we had reported in November 2018, the government had tabled the bill without much discussion, which had been criticised by the student body.
As we had reported earlier this month, NUJS chancellor had finally cleared its next vice-chancellor Prof NK Chakrabarti, after NUJS had been run by former judge Amit Talukdar for 15 months.
On 28th November, 2018 after the bill was passed unanimously by the assembly, a delegation of four students from NUJS’ SJA had met the WB governor.
They told him of the legal and practical problems with the implementation of the bill. After the meeting, the bill had remained unsigned for 6 months.
See full SJA representation to WB below.
Comments
I am all for Nationalisation of NLUs and a day when there is no State quotas for NLUs . But that has to be through a central legislation and till then some state students cannot derive benefits while other state students be deprived.
1. Professor from TMC gang.
2. Annoying troll.
Regarding funding you have a legitimate point though it is seriously in question how much other states with domicile actually help their universities. If you feel the Government should extend more funding please feel free to petition and meet the CM and Law Minister regarding the same. I am sure they will hear you. Other than that you have no case when it comes to domicile.
Also there is no doubt that NUJS student standards are falling when one of its students comes up and says “domicile reservation of this sort is nothing but a sham”. Please go and read up on domicile reservations kid, before making juvenile statements on LegallyIndia.
The NUJS was, is and will always be a State University. Instead of wasting your time fighting domicile (in which you have no case) you might as well petition the Government to increase your funding and present other related grievances. Also while you have no empirical backing to show that Kolkata students are the only one to get benefit from increase of seats I would much rather have students of Kolkata studying in NUJS than students from other states of India.
But is there any remedy to get out of this malaise.
Mamata is on the backfoot after elections and the media is after her. The time to protest is NOW.
1. NLSIU
2. NLUD/NALSAR
3 NLUJ/NLIU/GNLU
4. NLUO
5. MNLU/RGNUL/RMLNLU
6. HNLU/CNLU/NUJS
What effect does domicile reservations have in a college, if it is proven to be a negative factor, then the college must protest.
Calcutta has always been ahead when it comes to students protesting the inefficiencies of their respective administrations, NUJS should do the same, strongly worded letters to the Governor don't mean anything - there should be physical protests, at the residence of the CJ, the HC, Nabanna and the campus itself. There should be a strong online movement as well - this should be brought into the mainstream, there should be news vans, and all of this has to happen FAST.
Some people here have already started to write NUJS off for some reason, idk what problems you have, did a Noojie reject your advances, did you lose to them in some moot or PD, do you just hate Calcutta? Every year, for the last 3-4 years when NUJS has been sparring with the admin, their results have been brilliant, so it will take much more than this to bring NUJS down.
At the same time the SJA has to take a firm stand and not stop until this mess is sorted. A new batch of students are coming in, it needs to be explained to them that these protests aren't "college students wasting time" but a necessary step. Let them join you. I believe in NUJS and I hope they get things sorted.
From the Print:
https://theprint.in/opinion/mamata-banerjees-only-bangla-in-bengal-wont-get-her-votes-left-did-same-failed/251809/
And infact urge them to increase it to 50%. Those who don’t like WB domicile please stay in your cow belt we don’t need you here.
Politicians do not like free thinking, dissent, debate. It scares them. In contrast, populist, including jingoistic measures have often proved electorally useful. Since the state has the power to legislate, it will. The judges will check the political weather and rule accordingly. Soon we will all be living and studying in captive states.
Maybe the CJI can also look into the autonomy of these two law schools as well? Doubtful. He has so much on his plate already.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/state-mulls-20-domicile-quota-in-med-colleges/articleshow/69779616.cms
As you can clearly see, this is all political. The response from the students must also be political. Remember that the Congress Lok Sabha leader of opposition is now Adhir Chowdhury (Mamata's biggest enemy), while the BJP and Left hate Mamata. So just petition these parties and say she is interfering in NUJS affairs.
[quote]The Kolkata we grew up in — then known as Calcutta — was a very diverse, secular, pluralistic and tolerant place.Not only were there Hindus and Muslims living in harmony, there were Christians, Jews, Armenians, Anglo-Indians, Parsis and a host of other diverse peoples as well... Mamata Banerjee had meanwhile come into power with a huge popular mandate. There was no need for her to don a veil to show solidarity with Muslims. Good governance would have been enough. Why were Muslim youths not penalised when they broke traffic rules? That has angered many Hindus. [/quote]
https://www.dailyo.in/lifestyle/mamata-banerjee-tmc-minority-appeasement-doctors-strike-bjp-in-bengal/story/1/31155.html
1. Joint student and alumni petition -- 500 signatures to begin with. I will be good if there are many names with visible Bengali surnames, as well as people spread across the globe.
2. Approach the courts.
3. Separate outreach to legal luminaries, including those with a Bengal connection (Justice Ruma Pal, Pinaki Ghosh, Vikramjit Banerjee, Jayanta Mitra, Anindya Mitra etc). Justice AK Ganguly would have been great as he is an arch opponent of Mamata, but the episode with NUJS naturally rules him out (unfortunately, Shamnad Basheer made it a media circus to get back at Bhat).
4. Generate sympathy among the media and civil society --- everyone is angry with Mamata. Now even eminent Muslim intellectuals have written condemning her appeasement policy:
https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/muslim-citizens-kolkata-letter-mamata-banerjee-bengal-doctors-strike-ushoshi-sengupta-assault-1552187-2019-06-19
5. Reach out to the Congress, BJP and Left using a different angle (lack of funding and corrupt admin). Every party hates Mamata, and even Sonia Gandhi has given her a big slap by appointing Adhir Chowdury as Congress Lok Sabha head (her worst enemy and her biggest nightmare).
Assuming Didi loves Chandrababu Naidu (maybe no longer that useful after electoral loss) she could learn from him how he ensured that ISB was set up in Hyderabad and has flourished despite all the politics and state reorganization. Sure the students pay a bomb and MBA and LLB are apples and oranges. The point is while political favours will be traded, if politicos want, certain campuses remain free of their corrosive touch.
I will disagree that the Reds did not mess around with NUJS. To put it gently, there were powerful individuals who made hay but not whole-of-a-party interest. That's how the Green grass started growing here. But now we are caught in the political melee. This sneak attack has been in the works and was dutifully facilitated by God, Lord Taluk and Sensational. The other two interested souls are Bald (Legal) Eagle and Ray of Light.
This amendment is only the beginning. And everyone is in it. Yes, the judiciary as well. So think twice before protesting or approaching the courts. It can be part of a careful strategy but our detractors fully expect us to do those. They literally want us to do it. Why? Because they are ready and we are not. We no longer have the element of surprise with us.
Do we roll over? No. Do we go for knee-jerk reactions? Sure, if we are jerks. Chance favours the prepared mind. We wait and strike when we are least expected.
Did this not happen because someone got ticked off and sent to a different floor; and another got evicted from campus recently?
But what about the fellow who
[i]Blindsided by the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) stupendous success in West Bengal in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Mamata Banerjee is now pandering to the latent Bengali sub-nationalism.
...
Mamata should know better. Equating Hindi speakers with BJP supporters cannot explain the 18 seats that BJP won in West Bengal. Lakhs of Rabindrasangeet-singing, fish-eating Bengalis were sold on the Modi dream and voted for him.
[/i]
https://www.indiatoday.in/news-analysis/story/politics-of-parochialism-why-mamata-banerjee-and-others-are-losing-1552373-2019-06-20
1. Petition gets thrown out, there is pressure on NLSIU and NALSAR to impose quotas, a Nationalise NLUs movement happens (which NLSIU students have been avoiding for selfish reasons).
2. Petition gets accepted. Big victory.
Writ Petition (civil) 35 of 2019
PETITIONER:
Student Juridical Association & Ors.
RESPONDENT:
Union of India, CLAT Consortium, Bar Council of India, Govt of West Bengal, & the Vice Chancellor and Registrar, WBNUJS.
BENCH:
D.Y. CHANDRACHUD & HEMANT GUPTA
[quote]The executive council of the institute, which is its highest policy-making body, will take the decision on whether the 30 per cent reservation can be implemented from this year or not, the registrar said.
“A copy of the gazette notification has reached the university on Tuesday. But the executive council will decide whether the quota will be implemented this year,” Sen told Metro.
The executive council is slated to meet on June 29.
The authorities couldn’t be sure whether the 30 per cent quota for local students would take effect from this year or only from next year because Clat (Common Law Admission Test) results were declared four days before the issuing of the gazette notification and the process of allotments of seats are already in progress, the official said.[/quote]
https://www.telegraphindia.com/states/west-bengal/30-quota-for-bengal-at-nujs/cid/1692795
This is a downward spiral - leading to NUJS' death. Tomorrow the Govt will lower the tuition fee and will increase domicile quota leading to lack of financial capacity and student quality. High time that firms realise the reality of NUJS and its deteriorating quality on all levels.
Grow up! Else, people will prefer NLUO aboe WBNUJS (soon to be WBUJS).
[img]https://i.imgur.com/EBoRokT.png[/img]
In comparison, Vivekanandan is very articulate with great PR skills...not required for a scholar but definitely for a VC.
Hopefully JU will have a better experience https://www.telegraphindia.com/states/west-bengal/retired-judge-for-ju-probe/cid/1692777?ref=west-bengal_west-bengal-page
NUJS has suffered under a retired HC judge who sold us out for a song along with a Sensational Registrar.
Time to #OmitTalukdar #SikhaSentPacking
1. Karnataka and Telengaga follow suit with domicile quotas at NLSIU and NALSAR, which restores parity.
2. If not, protest and petitions by NUJS only.
3. If yes, then all NLUs unite and seek INI status and parity with IITs and IIMs.
[img]https://epaper.telegraphindia.com//epaperimages/21062019/21062019-md-hr-9/163746517.jpg[/img]
Why don't the politicos get it? Handouts and tokenism may secure electoral futures for a while but they always come back to bite. And the so-called poor, needy etc that they profess to serve, are not d***f***s. They have agency and aspirations too. They too understand deterioration in quality.
Then again we are expecting too much from our politicians https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/dr-same-same-chatterjee/cid/1489382
I have no illusion that politicians from other parties are any better. To my peers who think folks from opposition parties will help us....please get a written statement from them that they do not support "quota" or will roll it back immediately should they win (and not bring in their own version of quota)
- The current VC who set up the school will retire in the next few months and if the next VC is not good, the place will decline rapidly.
- Contrary to popular belief, the faculty of the place isn't that great. There are 5-6 very good people and the rest are mediocre to bad.
- There is a lot of very ugly faculty politics. Many of the good faculty won't stay beyond the current VC's term because of this (some have already left).
- The student environment is very 'toxic' (this was repeated multiple times but I don't know what that means).
- Everything is very ad hoc and depends only on the goodwill of 'admin'. No rules and no student government is in place.
There were some more things but these were the big ones that I remember. I want to know, is this the opinion of one person or is this actually true? Should I decide in favour of NUJS/NALSAR or JGLS instead? I am from NCR, if that helps.
Thank you in advance.
As for JGLS, don't even think about it. Do not be misled by the QS ranking. The batch size of JGLS is over 450. Only a small number get good jobs. They do have good faculty and some star NLU alumni, but often these teachers only teach small elective classes to the best students. Also, there a lot fo the good faculty teach human rights/public law courses, rather than corporate/business law subjects
1. One should consider NIRF ranking to be sacrosanct, but QS ranking is of course misleading.
2. Of all the NLUs named here, NLUD actually has the least number of NLU LLB alumni teaching there at present (2), but why bother about facts?
3. Cracking the UPSC exam should be considered as placement, because sure as hell the university reputation or admin or alumni base have roles to play in that success. NLUD's placement has never been any better than NALSAR or NUJS.
4. NUJS and NALSAR are going to go down for trumped up possibilities that you deem to be certain in your parallel universe, whereas the actual fact is that NLUD is going to lose its founding VC and unarguably the driving force behind its success is not going to affect it at all. Only you and dumb Bhakts like you would term NALSAR as a Naxal University, whatever it means. Have you ever seen or heard a Naxalite actually in real life?
5. Given your comment about JGLS faculty, care to name the star teaching faculty of NLUD who are the corporate law studs there? Because there isn't any.
What's tragically funny is that you don't even realise that when people like you start speaking in favour of even a good place as you seem to be doing now, even then your evident lack of reason or sense makes it look bad actually.
Faculty Profile of NUJS is here: http://bit.ly/FacultyProfile_NUJS
Be under no illusion that the government cares about the deterioration in quality, national status, access to funding etc. Sugato Bose and Amartya Sen, both feted by CM, could only dress Presidency pretty. It is another matter that they reserve their fire for a different M.
Be that as it may this should be instructive for Noojies who still think that the government will be persuaded by logic or threat of legal action https://www.telegraphindia.com/states/west-bengal/come-august-presidency-university-wont-have-any-chair-professor/cid/1693114?ref=more-from-west-bengal_west-bengal-page
All political parties understand only one equation - whether a move will be electorally successful or not. Right now the powers that be perceive the Amendment Act as bringing in votes as also "cut money" for LLB seats, faculty recruitment, campus expansion and construction.
And that's why they need Sensational & Co to continue as long as possible.
The WBNUJS Amendment Act isn't all about quota. The really troubling bits are the fee-setting power and the option to exit CLAT. But more broadly, it is the signal that if the state wants it will intervene at will...just because it can. Also you must know that in JU, opposition to domicile quota was led from the front by the VC but he was undone by politicized faculty. Also did the you see any of the med school folks in WB or elsewhere say anything on the proposed imposition of 20% quota? Did JU students do their famous protests when 90% domicile quota was imposed on the engineering seats? They will potentially lose IoE status and Rs 1000 crores in funding, if not other grants but did you even hear "Hok Kolorob"? So please pipe down and stop ranting (assuming you are a student). If you are one of those JL/IL fellows, stop instigating for your private profits.
https://www.telegraphindia.com/states/west-bengal/jadavpur-university-keeps-533-home-seats/cid/1693193
I don't see any news of JU students conducting their hallmark protests now
At NUJS we have an employee who was suspended more than half a decade ago and since then has been drawing generous subsistence allowance thanks to PIB ([...]) and later Taluk, Sensational & Co.
Guess who was footing this subsistence allowance all along? We, the students, while tripling, avoiding snake bites, suffering Faulty and administrative flab etc. Taking inspiration from Upamanyu Chatterjee, I am thinking of writing "The milking of udders at NUJS"
Then again Taluk, Sensational & Co have refused to take action because it would embarrass the AG and core members of the JL and IL. And we all thought that JL and IL are enemies.
Is Taluk, Sensational & Co afraid that the "[...]" trail will singe a lot of their friends in the EC and elsewhere, cutting across political and professional divides?
I agree that the university should have swiftly and fairly taken a decision on the SH matter and not drag it out all these years. But here is what I know (including articles published here):
1. The SH victim had made repeated verbal complaints before PIB. But for one full year he tried to bat things down. The offender was verbally cautioned several times but he could care less because....
2. Receiving no respite, the SH victim sent a written complaint to the university. The offender was sent on leave. Thereafter he started playing truant while continuing to threaten the victim directly and indirectly. The victim then filed an FIR. The university sensing that matters are turning serious and complicated, suspended the offender and PIB put him on subsistence allowance.
3. The university sent the complaint to the ICC, which was then led by RG. PIB would make frequent changes but RG and AM (as expected) remained constant. Till RG got publicly reported as being sympathetic to offender and attempting back channel rapprochement on behalf of the offender. RG also made some strenuous interpretations of the reported SH instances and a public exposure of those caused RG to resign. AM was asked to stay on and a new ICC Chair was appointed, [...]. PIB also packed in some more of his cronies.
4. While all this was going on, offender kept playing truant. At some point his anticipatory bail plea was rejected by the Calcutta High Court; the Bidhannagar Police arrested him in late Dec 2013; and after some initial SC rejections, he finally got out on bail.
5. [...] and crew submitted their report in early 2014 which confirmed SH. The majority felt that specific disciplinary action was best decided by the university, which neither had a service rule nor SH policy in place. The minority strongly recommended immediate termination.
6. The EC preferred that PIB took a call on this matter. Previously it had outsourced the issue of subsistence allowance and hikes to PIB. And so PIB formed the holy trinity committee - himself (Top class God), Supreme God (lurks in library) and CPC/CrPC God. The trinity dutifully adopted the arguments made by the offender to increase subsistence allowance from 50% to 100% in quick jumps and without due non-engagement certification.
7. PIB and Co let the offender enjoy without even checking whether he was working elsewhere. Only recently did the EC force [...] to demand those non-engagement certifications. And we know how those can be procured and bought.
8. But to go back to what PIB recommended to the EC concerning disciplinary action was this - the offender was to be kept on suspension, on subsistence allowance (with very timely and generous hikes) till the conclusion of the criminal case that was initiated by the victim. Sounds familiar? This trick was also used in the Surajit Mukhopadhyay matter as well till the the Calcutta HC instituted Justice (Retd) PN Sinha Inquiry Report ensured his termination.
9. Very interestingly, the EC that gave PIB a free hand on this SH matter had Lord Taluk and at no point did he bother to ask PIB further details on the actual nature of the case; whether the university was even a party to it; whether there was any stay order or direction from the court not to terminate the offender's employment etc?
10. The prosecution was launched by the victim. The university is not a party to the case. The offender has not secured any stay order etc against the university. But SH was clearly established by the ICC and it was accepted by the university and EC. And yet it was decided to keep the offender generously funded till the game of dates concludes in the courts?
11. Maybe @Guest 63.1 is correct. The university and EC should have questioned the victim on the progress of the case. And demanded answers in writing with supporting paperwork. I don't know if Lord Taluk has done that now. He should have, especially if this sexual and financial profligacy vitally hinges on the "case" that the victim launched.
12. I am not interested in a moral crusade or salacious gossip concerning out-of-court settlements etc. I don't want a glaring of fat cats bankrolled on student fees. The offender needs to be fired; the recommendations of the holy trinity reviewed (at least two Gods are still around); and those responsible for checking non-engagement certifications and ground-truthing will need be hauled up as well. And most certainly explore options to claw back monies from the offender or his pals in the university.
13. One thing that stands out is the role a certain gentleman who has taken undue interest in university affairs. Along with PIB, he has been most interested in keeping both the Registrar and AR Admin positions in limbo. He is furious with students for evicting PIB and SAK. In collaboration with Lord Taluk, he ensured Justice PN Sinha Inquiry report is sent to oblivion; faculty recruitment scams hushed up; inquiries never really take off; and crucial appointments are delayed and frustrated; and state interference is facilitated. But now he has developed a [...] feeling that his interests are better served by someone else.
14. By the way, this not so mysterious friend and his Ray of Light would very much want the SH matter to drag on. Air Water knows why.