The Issue Of Mushrooming Of Law Colleges Cannot Be Regulated Until There Is A Uniformity All Over The Country: Madras High Court

The Division Bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee & Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy while refusing to issue a writ of mandamus in a matter pertaining to mushrooming of law colleges in the State has observed that the matter requires an indepth look by the Bar Council & possible orders should be sought at an all India level to ensure that the quality is not compromised in the course of more law colleges being born and in the guise of opportunities being created.

 “The regulation of law colleges in one State is undone if unregulated law colleges in a contiguous State allow easy access. There are previous orders of this Court pertaining to the matter and only thing that can be said is for the Bar Council to be vigilant as far as this State is concerned, since it cannot go beyond the territorial limits.”, the Bench noted.  

In the present matter, the Bench was dealing with the representation made by the petitioner to draw the Court’s attention for restricting the establishment of law colleges in every locality &  further look into the standard of education imparted & available infrastructure of existing law colleges. 

The State Bar Council submitted that although it took vigilant & sufficient steps but the situation could not be addressed appropriately unless there was uniformity all over the country, whether under the aegis of the Bar Council of India 0r pursuant to the Court’s order.

“It may not be effective merely to regulate the opening of law colleges within the boundaries of this State as easy access to law colleges across the neighbouring States will always be open, no meaningful order is possible to be issued at this level”, the Court remarked while disposing of the matter. 

Case Title: MD Ashok v. The Chief Secretary, Tamil Nadu| W.P.No.1858 of 2021