Parliamentary Standing Committee bats for improved Regulation & Standards in Legal Education
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
March 3, 2017
The parliamentary standing committee on Law & Justice in its latest report recommended for improved regulation & standards in legal education. India currently has 1305 law colleges and 14.45 lakh advocates are registered with the various state bar councils.
It is an undisputed fact that the opportunities for legal professionals have increased manifold following the liberalization of the economy. With ever increasing demand for legal education, the parliamentary standing committee on Law & Justice submitted a report on ‘Promotion of Legal Education and Research’ recently. Among other things, the committee recommended improved regulation and standards in legal education.
1305 colleges imparting legal education in the country
As per the standing committee report, there are 1305 colleges across the country imparting legal education that are registered with the Bar Council of India. This comes to around one college for every million population. As per government estimates, about 30000 advocates join the legal profession every year.
Uttar Pradesh is home to around 25% of all the law colleges in the country (320). Apart from Uttar Pradesh, only four other states (Maharashtra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan) have more than 100 law colleges each. Surprisingly, Tamil Nadu, Bihar & West Bengal have fewer legal colleges compared to the other big states.
1.45 million advocates enrolled with State Bar Councils
As per the standing committee report, a total of 1445056 lawyers are registered with the various state bar councils. This comes to about 119 lawyers for every 1,00,000 population or one lawyer for every 837 people. Though India is behind US, UK and Australia in terms of the lawyers per 1,00,000 people, it is ahead of countries like China & Japan.
But there are wide variations within the states. Delhi leads with 4447 lawyers per million population, almost 3 times that of Uttar Pradesh with 1522 lawyers per million population.  Fourteen (14) different state bar councils have more than 1000 lawyers registered per million population. Jammu & Kashmir has only 438 lawyers per million population, the least in the country.
Conflicting viewpoints from various stakeholders
The committee held stakeholder meetings in five different places. Various viewpoints were received from stakeholders during these meetings, some of which were conflicting in nature. Some of the important viewpoints received by the committee are the following.
Committee recommends improving standards & regulation of legal education
After hearing these viewpoints, the committee recommended the overall improvement both in the standards and regulation of legal education in the country. The following are some of the important recommendations of the committee.
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