Bar on age spells trouble for law colleges

BANGALORE: In what can be termed a major blow to law colleges in the state, the Bar Council of India (BCI) has imposed age restrictions on students who want to pursue LLB courses from the coming academic year।

Once BCI’s amended rules on age limit to admission for the five-year and three-year LLB courses come into force, a majority of law colleges will be forced to close down. Recently, BCI sent a circular to all 86 law colleges in the state regarding amendment of rule 4 of legal education and directed that the rule had to be followed for the academic year 2009-10. In the amended rule, BCI has fixed 20 years as the maximum age for admission for five-year LLB courses and 30 years for the three-year LLB courses. To ensure quality in legal education, BCI amended the rules।

Interestingly, BCI did not send a copy of the circular to the Karnataka State Bar Council (KSBC). “KSBC has not received the circular so far,” said an officer in KSBC. “If this rule comes into force in the coming academic year, out of the 38 law colleges in Bangalore, 36 law colleges may have to be closed down. The rule will affect five-year courses more than the three-year courses.
Ninety percent of students want to pursue the five-year courses after the age of 20, because many of them do not complete SSLC and PUC exams on time। Majority of LLB students studying in the threeyear and five-year courses have crossed their age limit prescribed by BCI,” Mariswamy Gowda, principal of Rajiv Gandhi Law College and convener of Law College Principals’ Association told Express.

“After the circular was received in January, we wrote a letter to BCI requesting it to withdraw the new rule as it violates Article 14 of the Constitution.
If BCI does not heed to our request, we will file a writ petition in the court,”said Gowda.
Late latifs

A majority of students in Bangalore get admission at the age of 25 for the five-year course and at 35 for the three-year course. Due to discontinuation of education and failing to pass SSLC and PUC exams on time, most of the students get admission to law colleges between the ages of 23 to 25 for the five-year course. Many people working in private and government sectors complete LLB courses while in service. Some of them have got LLB degrees even after retirement,” said the principal of a law college.