S. Muneer
Aligarh. The Times of Taj on December 29, 2025 carried a news titled ‘Gross Irregularities at the Faculty of Law, Aligarh Muslim University’ in admissions for the academic session 2025-26. The news brought to light an apprehension of the students of the Law Faculty, a 120 year old institution of the University ranked among the highest in the Country, of losing its recognition of the Bar Council of India (BCI) a central body responsible for setting and maintaining standards of law education and recognition of law institutes. The derecognition of the Faculty of Law means derecognition of its degrees and the students are likely to suffer not getting employment or securing a license for practice.
Even before the release of the news the Faculty of Law apprehending, based on the interviews sought by the reporter of the functionaries of the University, hurriedly called a meeting of the Faculty immediately and placed the matter before it. The reporter procured a copy of the minutes of the meeting issued vide D. no. 2859/Faculty/Law. The meeting was Chaired by the Dean of the Faculty and 16 other members attended it. The minutes read that after a long deliberation on the issue the meeting clearly mentioned “…the Centre of Legal Education is governed by…BCI…, which has sanctioned an intake of 120 students for the B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) Programme” per year. The Faculty recognised the fact that BCI is the “…sole authority to sanction the number of seats”. The members observed that the BCI Rules demand that the intake shall not exceed 60 seats, i.e. a total 120 seats, whereas this year 240 admissions were made and first semester examination has already been completed. Accordingly, the Faculty opined that “…Faculty of Law, AMU, Aligarh, has a sanctioned strength of the BA LLB (Hons) Programme of 120 seats inclusive of all the categories/quotas”. Whereas, 70 more seats have been filled under the Self-Financing Scheme (SFS) and under the Non-Resident Indian (NRI) quota and other categories raising the number of admissions to 240 for the year.
The question everyone on the campus is raising how will the University ensure no harm comes to the bona fide students after the violation of BCI guidelines by admitting 120 extra students beyond the limits set by it. The teachers and the students are raising the issue of the competence of the Controller of Examinations and Admissions, who must have been fully aware of the possible fall out of violating the guidelines of BCI. Some teachers are also raising an apprehension of something fishy going on, which has come out of the latest news by various media on the fee scam taken place in the University.
Vice Chancellor was sent a WhatsApp message in this regard but till the publication of the news no response was received.
The Member In-charge of the Public Relations Office was sent a WhatsApp message in this regard but as usual till the publication of the news no response was received.
