Thiruvananthapuram: The principals of four self-financing law colleges have protested against the Kerala University decision to amend the scheme and syllabus for integrated five-year BA LLB course for 2018-19 without informing them.
The students came to know of the change in syllabus only when they visited the website.
The principals-- E.R. Jayaram, Mar Gregorios College of Law, S. Usha, Sree Narayan Guru College of Legal Studies, Kollam, G. Rajasekharan Nair, NSS Law College, Kottiyam, and A. Prasanna, CSI Institute of Legal Studies, Parasaala-- in a joint letter to Kerala University vice-chancellor-in-charge, Mr Gopinath Ravindran, protested against the decision.
The Kerala Law Academy Law College has also submitted a separate letter to the vice-chancellor on the issue. As the board of studies did not circulate the draft of the proposed change, which is the normal procedure, the new scheme and syllabus should not be introduced from 2018-19 academic year, the letters pointed out.
The principals said that as per the decision of the board of studies, the new scheme and syllabus were applicable only to the five-year integrated BA LLB programmes. However, affiliated colleges offered five-year B Com LLB and BBA LLB programmes also. Any change in scheme and syllabus will become comprehensive only if it is applicable to all the three streams of five-year LLB courses.
The stipulation that there should be three papers in Malayalam in integrated BA LLB five-year course will not stand legal scrutiny as it is against the Bar Council norms. If Malayalam is made compulsory without providing for an option to choose any other language, the students whose mother tongue is not Malayalam cannot seek admission to law courses in Kerala University, the letter said.
If there is no uniformity in the total number of law papers and in the semester-wise distribution of law papers, that may lead to a total collapse of the examination system in the university, which is already under tremendous pressure. The university will not be able to conduct either the main or supplementary examinations commonly for the three streams of the five-year LLB course, the letter said.
