Law is changing. The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita Bill 2023, Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita Bill 2023, and Bharatiya Sakhshya Bill 2023 have been referred to the Standing Committee on Home Affairs, which has three months to carry out consultations and submit its report on the three Bills, which seek to replace the Indian Penal Code 1860, the Criminal Procedure Code 1898, and the Indian Evidence Act 1872.
How will this biggest reform in the field of Indian law impact LLB students, especially those who are in final year, having studied IPC, CrPC and IEA all this while?
Prof Sudhir Krishnaswamy, vice-chancellor of the National Law School of India University, Bengaluru, told FE that there will be no radical change in the way law is taught in schools. “In law schools, we focus a lot on foundational principles,” he said.
“An LLB student shouldn’t really worry about massive changes in syllabus. Laws will keep changing – there are both legislative additions and case law additions every few months. The idea that law is a changing body is taught to students very early in their LLB course.”
He added that students must focus on foundational principles. “If, for example, you understand the foundational principles of contract law, and even if the contract statute is amended tomorrow – be it a section or the entire act – if your foundational principles are strong, you won’t face any challenge,” he said.
Giving an analogy of physics, Prof Krishnaswamy added that there are four fundamental forces of nature – gravitational force, weak nuclear force, electromagnetic force and strong nuclear force – and tomorrow if we find there is a fifth force of nature, the four known forces haven’t disappeared. “This, however, may increase the workload of students – and now they need to learn about a new force as well,” he said. “The same is the case with law students – they will have to learn something new. But then that has always been the case.” But legal education, in general, needs a new vision.
An academic who didn’t wish to be identified told FE that a flaw with legal education in India is that there are only a few dynamic and outstanding law schools. “About a dozen law schools are islands of excellence, and a few of those are among the best in the world,” he said. “All others are mediocre schools where you pay your fees, complete attendance, clear exams by any means, and get a degree. Your learning starts only when you join a team of lawyers. That shouldn’t be the case.”
He added that legal education isn’t as multidisciplinary as, let’s say, management education is. Another challenge is that while India has some very good law teachers and professors, it doesn’t have enough of those. “While we cannot create great teachers immediately, what we can do – in the short term – is attracting more visiting faculty (existing lawyers as well as experts from law and related fields),” he said.
Another challenge is that once lawyers have started their careers, they barely go back to school. “Like business schools have management development programmes for upskilling CXOs, all law schools should run such programmes for upskilling lawyers, and lawyers should see value in such programmes,” he said. “These programmes can be both short and long – ranging from a couple of days to a few weeks.”