Delhi University will be forced to stop the popular evening classes at its law faculty and cut its student intake by 800 this year after an adverse report by the Bar Council of India (BCI) that regulates legal education in the country.
The report – which was sent to the university on August 6 – is expected to resolve a legal tangle and allow the admission counseling to begin at the law faculty after two postponements.
“The matter has been approved in the academic council of the university and we have decided that we will follow the BCI rules and recommendations,” said a senior university official.
The university law faculty runs three centres :  Law Centre—I (LC-I), Campus Law Centre (CLC) and Law Centre –II (LC-II) – and is considered one of India’s top places to study law.
The problem started in 2014 when the BCI refused to enroll the law faculty’s students as advocates because DU had not applied for inspection and affiliation despite reminders.
The BCI said the law faculty ran without affiliation for three years between 2011 and 2014,when it gave provisional affiliation to the law faculty.
In its recent report, the BCI approved eight sections with 60 students each – a total of 1,440 students which is inclusive of the 49.5% quota for scheduled caste, tribe and other backward classes.
The BCI said it doesn’t allow more than five sections but made an exemption for DU.
The report also said the university violated legal education rules by conducting classes after 7pm. The DU conducted classes from 5.30pm to 8.30pm at LC-II, which functioned out of the Atma Ram Sanatan Dharma College’s campus in south Delhi.
It also said LC-I and LC—II will function from a new building under construction and the CLC from the same premises in at DU’s north campus. This ended confusion over the exercise after a student challenged in court the decision to move the centres.