DU law aspirants on hunger strike against scrapping of evening

Scores of students aspiring to study law in Delhi University are on a hunger strike against the recent recommendation of the Bar Council of India (BCI) to scrap evening law classes which may result in reduction of over 800 seats.
The aspirants led National Students Union of India and All India Students Association are demanding that the seat intake be left untouched.
The issue is being raised by all student groups active on campus including ABVP, AISA and NSUI, especially at a time when union elections are due next month.
BCI has asked DU to shutdown colleges offering law courses in the evening shifts.

The recommendation has been made after a committee of BCI, the apex regulatory body for legal education and legal profession in the country, submitted an adverse report about infrastructure and quality of education imparted at the centres of DU's law faculty.
Around 800 students are currently enrolled in the DU evening colleges offering law.

In an unprecedented move, BCI had in 2014 decided to derecognize DU's law course after it failed to seek timely extension of the affiliation of its three centres, namely Campus Law Centre, Law Centre-I and Law Centre-II.
It was granted a provisional extension of affiliation for the 2014-15 session after DU proposed to shift to a new building which it claimed "had adequate space" for the faculty to run properly.

However, after a fresh inspection by a BCI panel, the council had noted that besides fresh violations, the illegalities earlier highlighted remain unattended.
Following this, BCI had issued it a show-cause notice to explain the "illegalities" in its functioning including more than permissible student strength, lack of infrastructure and faculty.
The council had in January communicated to the university to shutdown colleges offering law courses in evening shifts, saying such programmes do not ensure proper quality of legal education.