A recent complaint has been lodged with the Bar Council of India (BCI) targeting the School of National Security and Law (SNSL) at Rashtriya Raksha University (RRU) in Gandhinagar. The complaint, dated August 31, was submitted by a concerned student to the BCI’s secretary, joint secretaries, and the Legal Education Committee. It asserts that internal avenues for resolving issues have been exhausted and accuses the law school of blatantly breaching the BCI Rules of Legal Education, 2008.
The SNSL, currently listed as an approved Centre of Legal Education (CLE) by the BCI’s Legal Education Committee for the 2026-27 academic session, faces scrutiny. Students have highlighted discrepancies following the December 2023 approval letter for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 sessions, where RRU was mandated to submit a notarised compliance affidavit within six weeks.
The approval conditions stipulated several enhancements: employing full-time faculty with at least an LL.M. degree on UGC pay scales, relocating the law library to the School of Law building with a minimum investment of ₹5 lakh in new reference materials, upgrading the moot court with three crown chairs under the supervision of a senior professor, establishing a legal aid clinic in partnership with the district legal services authority, and constructing additional classrooms with a minimum seating capacity of 60.
According to the student’s complaint, many of these conditions remain unfulfilled. The grievances articulated include:
- Lack of full-time faculty: The teaching staff is entirely on a contractual basis, with no professors or senior professors of law, and no new hires.
- Insufficient specialized faculty for Honours subjects, failing to meet the BCI’s requirement of three full-time teachers per subject.
- Inadequate classroom facilities: Lectures are conducted in the moot court hall and seminar hall, with two batches being taught in “classrooms made of tin sheds.”
- Non-functional law library: Absence of textbooks, an updated AIR manual, and a case law database.
- Lack of collaboration with the district legal services authority, rendering the legal aid clinic and pro bono services inactive.
- Poorly maintained moot court, lacking oversight from senior faculty or practising advocates, with no records maintained.
- The Director, Sunil Kavishwar, does not possess a law degree, contravening BCI norms that necessitate a senior law professor with a Ph.D.
- Only one part-time faculty member for management subjects, with subjects reportedly altered without requisite approval.
- Unapproved rebranding of the school from SNSL to the School of Criminal Law and Military Law (SCLML) without BCI sanction.
The complaint implores the BCI and its Legal Education Committee to take decisive action and issue directives to safeguard the welfare and rights of law students. “Our careers, our mental health, and our very faith in the legal system hang by a thread,” the email expressed.
