Bar Council of India (BCI), on Monday (June 13), said it had constituted a committee to provide legal education in regional languages of the country.
In a press note, BCI said it is imperative that legal education is taught in various regional languages to make every citizen aware of their legal rights. It also said if the majority is taught the legal education in the regional languages, it can prevent the exploitation of taking someone’s ignorance on the ground and will make access to doors of justice wider.
It also said that in association with Schools, UGC, Universities and academicians, the Bar Council of India will take legal education to the doors of every citizen of the country.
As per the New Education Policy (NEP), BCI is also looking at introducing legal education in two languages, one in English and the other in the language of the state where the law programme is situated.
The committee constituted by the Bar Council of India to provide legal education in regional languages of the country is headed by the Former Chief Justice of India, S. A. Bobde.
Other members of the committee include senior advocate in the Supreme Court and current president of the Bar Council of India Manan Kumar Mishra, former chief justice of Patna High Court L. Narsimha Reddy, UGC chairman Jagdish Kumar, Chairman of Bharatiya Bhasha Samiti (Ministry of Education) Chamu Krishna Shastry, former vice-chancellor of National Law University, Kolkata and Karnataka, Prof. P Ishwar Bhat, senior advocate Alok Mehta, Shastra University’s vice-chancellor Prof. Vidya Subramanium, advocate Smt. Anjali Vijay Thakur, Dean, law department and former principal of Ujjain’s Madhav college Narain Sharma, UGC’s joint secretary Dr Gopakumar Sharma and Ms Anjul Dwivedi.
The committee ensures that law texts are published in regional languages, and there is no difficulty in imparting legal education in regional languages. The committee also works on translating the law books into the regional languages along with the technical words.
Bar Council of India Rules of Legal Education has already permitted the study of legal education in local languages.
