Bombay high court upholds Bar Council’s powers to inspect law schools

Mumbai: The Bar Council of India's power of inspection is a necessary concomitant to maintain the standards of education, ruled the Bombay high court on Wednesday and dismissed a petition filed by SNDT Women's University Law School that challenged as arbitrary and illegal one such inspection proposed in 2018.The judgment pronounced by Chief Justice Abhay Aradhe and Justice M S Karnik said the BCI notice to SNDT in 2018 was neither arbitrary nor illegal, nor in violation of constitutional freedoms. The HC said that it was now open to the BCI to constitute a committee afresh, if so advised, to inspect the law school.The HC held that the Advocates Act, 1961, was enacted to "empower the BCI to promote legal education and to lay down the standards of such education".The law school challenged as "void" several provisions under the BCI-framed Rules of Legal Education, 2008. It argued that the rules were against the power conferred under the Advocates Act.The HC heard senior counsel Milind Sathe as amicus curiae, Nitin Chaudhary for SNDT, AGP Jyoti Chavan for the state, and Advocate Shekhar Jagtap for BCI. The bench analysed the laws governing legal education and held that the 2008 rules set out minimum standards for universities and law colleges to follow.The rules provide for the inspection of centres of legal education by a BCI-appointed panel. The HC said SNDT law school "cannot claim any immunity from inspection by the Bar Council".