Thiruvananthapuram: The present strike at the Kerala Law Academy Law College has brought into focus the nature of the composition of the trust which runs the college. Though the trust now governs the college with family members of N. Narayanan Nair in the lead, originally it had a governing body with representatives of the government. In August 1968, the then agriculture minister M. N. Govindan Nair of the CPI, answering a question in the assembly by N. I. Devassykutty, the Congress MLA from Manalur, had said that the land was not given to any individual.
Mr Devassykutty allegation was that Mr Nair awarded the 11.49 cents of revenue land to the Academy of one ‘Samadhanam’ Narayanan, his close confidant, without the knowledge of the concerned minister. The minister replied that a trust with the governor as the chief patron, chief minister as the patron and ministers of revenue and education as members got it. V. Viswanathan was the governor, E. M. S. Namboodiripad, the chief minister, K. R. Gowri the revenue minister and C. H. Mohammed Koya, the education minister.
It was registered in 1966 under the Travancore – Cochin Literary Scientific and Charitable Societies Registration Act with S. Narayanan Potti as the president and Dr N. Narayanan Nair as the secretary. The person referred as Samadhanam Narayanan by Mr Devassykutty was none other than Mr Narayanan Nair who is now its director and also the father of Lakshmi Nair for whose ouster the students had been in agitating. He has to his record the status of being the first person to be awarded a PhD in law by the Kerala University.
He also holds the record for being the longest-serving member of the syndicate as well as the senate of the Kerala University obviously due to his political clout. He was in the senate continuously since 1963 without a break and had a teaching career at the Government Law College, Thiruvananthapuram, initially. The land came into the possession of Academy on February 29, 1968. The lease was originally for three years, which was extended to 30 years in 1976. In 1985, the K Karunakaran-led government assigned the land to the Academy.
The executive council of the college had the later Justices V. R. Krishna Iyer and P. Subramanian Potti and senior advocates Kalathil Velayudhan Nair and S. Easwara Iyer. K. Chandrasekharan, also a lawyer who would later become the law minister was also a member. In addition to the members of the executive committee Adv M. M. Abdul Khader, M. Prabhakaran and Justice V. Sivaraman Nair were members of its governing council. Kerala University granted affiliation to the college for offering LL.B evening course in the same year. The full-time course was started subsequently in 1970. Justice P. Govinda Menon, a retired judge of the Kerala High Court, was the first principal.
