National Law Institute University

The National Law Institute University
Type National university
Established 1997
Students ~ 500
Undergraduates ~ 400
Postgraduates ~ 100
Location Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India
Campus Urban
Colors Red and yellow
Nickname NLIU
Affiliations UGC,[1] Bar Council of India
Website www.nliu.ac.in

National Law Institute University (NLIU) is a law school and centre for research located in Bhopal, India. Established in 1997 by the State of Madhya Pradesh, it is one of the first three law schools to have been established under the National Law School system. Since its establishment, NLIU has consistently been rated among the three best law schools in India.[2] The university launched its first academic programme in 1998, with Indian jurist V.S. Rekhi as the Director.[3] Recognized by the Bar Council of India, the university admits 100 undergraduates each year through the Common Law Admission Test, who complete 15 trimesters before being awarded a combined B.A., LL.B (Hons.) degree. The post-graduate course offered at the university is the LL.M. degree.

The university is a member of the Association of Indian Universities and the patron of the university is the Hon. Chief Justice of India. It works closely with the High Court of Madhya Pradesh, as well as the National Judicial Academy. Since 2009, NLIU has been home to the Rajiv Gandhi National Cyber Law Center, established by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India.[4]

History

It was increasingly realised by the professionals and academicians that the system of law teaching in India was thoroughly inadequate and unimaginative.[5]

Justice J.S. Verma had proposed the first National Law School at Bhopal. However, the proposal could not take shape. National Law Institute University was set up in Bhopal by Act No. 41 of 1997, the "Rashtriya Vidhi Sansthan Vishwavidyalaya Adhiniyam" or the NLIU Act, 1997.[6] The first programme was launched in 1998, and the courses commenced on September 1, 1998.[7]

The Masters in Law (LL.M.) programme was launched in 2007, with the first batch graduating in 2009. The establishment of Student Bodies, Academic Cells and associations commenced in 2002 with the establishment of the NLIU Moot Court Association.[8] In 2007, the university witnessed the establishment of the Alternative Dispute Resolution Cell (ADRC) and the Cell for Awareness and Research in Environmental Studies (CARES).[9][10] The Centre for Business and Commercial Law was established in 2008.[11] The University published the first edition of Indian Law Review in November, 2009.[12] The NLIU Law Review was first published in 2010, and the NLIU Journal of Intellectual Property Law was first published in 2012.[13]

Academics

The university is devoted to the use of modern methods of teaching and evaluation. It emphasizes the advantages of learning through small groups in clinical setting. The year is divided into three trimesters of 70 working days each. The lectures are accompanied by extensive teaching material prepared and consistently revised by the faculty. Use of audio-visual equipment, small group sessionals, computorials, externships, internal moot courts, simulation and other learning by doing techniques form the core of tutional arrangement. The student is expected to write one paper in each course later followed by substantive dissertation in seminar courses. The cumulative effect is to make for an intensive environment of learning where the teacher and the taught co-operate in inquisitive exploration.

Campus and infrastructure

The NLIU campus is situated on the side of a hillock near Kerwa Lake on the Kerwa Dam Road, Bhadbhada in the city of Bhopal. The new campus complex has been designed to keep the environmental impact on the land to a minimum thereby creating a blend of natural landscape and modern architecture, including the Academic Block, the Auditorium and the Gyan Mandir - which houses the Library, The Comp Lab, Faculty Rooms, Debating Halls and classrooms. The university's sports facilities include a sports complex which houses a gym, facilities for table tennis, badminton, tennis, pool, other indoor games, two basketball courts, fields for volleyball and football. The hostels provide double rooms for the First years and single rooms from Second through Fifth year. The Nescafe outlet and the 'Collage' Canteen in the campus are the favourite haunts of the students during breaks and evenings. Rajiv Gandhi National Cyber Law Centre is the first of its kind established inside the NLIU campus.

Student activities

The co-curricular activities of the university are regulated and overseen by the various committees which are in existence. The following committees handle the main co-curricular activities taking place in the university. All the committees are run by students with a faculty in-charge. They have their own constitution and the students have been given the independence to formulate the working mode of these committee. https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=456689461818 The cells of NLIU include:

The Moot Court Association

Moot Court Association

The Moot Court Association plays an important role in encouraging mooting activity on campus. The Association has hosted various national level moot court competitions, including the Annual Inter-University Bar Council of India Trust Moot Court Competition and the Stetson International Law Moot Court Competition, along with the University's own moot court competition, the Justice R.K. Tankha Memorial National Moot Court Competition, the 3rd edition of which was successfully organised in 2009. The M.C.A. is also responsible for organizing selections for the National Moot Speakers' Pool and National Moot Researchers' Pool, International Moot Speakers' Pool, Researchers' Pool and the fresher's pool specifically meant for the first years undergrad. students as well as the Client Counselling Pool, which are dissolved and re-selected annually. Only the students in the pools are allowed to represent the University in such competitions, which maintains the level of quality that NLIU holds essential to its status as a premier law school in India. The selection process of the M.C.A. includes general elections for II - V year representatives, and an M.C.A. induction debate for freshers.

The M.C.A. also maintains the M.C.A. blog for its activities, managed by the M.C.A. executives for the students of NLIU.

Jus Cultura

Jus Cultura

Jus Cultura is the Literary, Debating and Quizzing Society of NLIU that plays an important part in the holistic development approach of the University. The Society adopted a unique way of enriching budding debating talent through the concept of 'Fraturday Debating' where students from the University get a chance to debate with other students. Every year, the Society selects students for the 2 on 2 and the 3 on 3 debate pool, through the NLIU Debating League, and the Quiz Pool through the Jus Cultura Quiz. The debaters from NLIU have brought much deserved fame and recognition for NLIU on the National as well as International Debating Circuit, through active participation in various debates like the Worlds Debate, the Asians' Debate, the Mukherji Memorial Debate and the N.L.S. Debate. The Society has given birth to many debaters in the University and is in process of making NLIU the hub of Debating in central India.

Alternate Dispute Resolution Cell

The Alternative Dispute Resolution Cell (ADRC) of National Law Institute University was instituted in the month of March 2007. Since its inception the cell has done commendable work un der the guidance of the ADR Cell’s Teacher–in-charge and the student members. ADRC has a 40-member strong team of able and committed students from all the batches of NLIU.

The ADR Cell of NLIU is currently the most successful ADR Cell at any Law School in the country. To date, NLIU has also been the most successful Indian University at several International Mediation and Arbitration Competitions.

In 2008-09 the Cell also hosted India’s Former President Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam for his lectures at the University.

NLIU, in collaboration with International Academy of Dispute Resolution (INADR) hosts an annual International Mediation Tournament. This is the first of its kind to be held in India and is considered to be one the premier mediation tournaments in the sub-continent http://www.inadr.org/.

Athena

The cultural committee, Athena, organizes various cultural events within the University, including the annual intra-University events Palchin and Rang Manch. It has collaborated with SPICMACAY for promoting Indian art and culture among the youth. It has been host to artists like Maestro Ram Kumar, Ustad Zulfikar Syed, Pandit Kore, violinist T.N. Krishnan, Grammy Award Winner Padmashree Vishwa Mohan Bhatt and the Indian rock band Indian Ocean. It also organizes events such as the weekly film-screening.

NLIU Law Review

The NLIU Law Review is the bi-annual law journal published by the University. It publishes material on subjects of interest to the legal profession and aims at encouraging students to research and create scholarly writings of the highest quality. It is a medium through which the students can express their opinions and views on various legal and other related issues as per their analysis and understanding. The first issue of the journal was published in May 2010.

Centre for Business and Commercial Laws

The Center for Business and Commercial Law (C.B.C.L.) came into being in 2008 and was instituted with the aim of facilitating corporate awareness and providing avenues for exploring the world of corporate and commercial laws. CBCL has been actively involved in undertaking various activities such as publishing monthly e-journals, organizing workshops, panel discussions, paper presentations and weekly corporate news bulletins.

Events concluded in 2009 include the C.B.C.L. workshop on legal drafting conducted by Shishir Vyattaden and Jitendra Tanikela associates, the in-house Paper Presentation Competition on topics involving Corporate Social Responsibility, Limited Liability Partnership and Companies Bill, 2009 and the International Conference on Corporate Social Responsibility and Industrial Disasters.

Popularly known in the university as NLIU's Wall Street Journal, C.B.C.L. has been successfully carrying out the monthly e-journal incorporating the views expressed by industry experts, faculty members, research fellows, alumni and students.

Sports Committee

The Sports Committee has been active in retaining a sporting culture in the university and actively promotes sports such as football and volleyball. The committee picks teams to represent the University in various National and other inter-college events. It also hosts the annual sports fest of the University, Virudhaka.

Other cells in the university include Centre for Intellectual Property Rights (CSIPR), Centre for Awareness and Research in Environmental Studies (CARES), Constitutional Law Cell (CLC), Law and Economics Cell (LEC), People United for Law, Education and Rehabilitation (PULER) etc.

Alumni Affairs Cell

The Alumni Affairs Cell has the student body working for the NLIU Bhopal Alumni Association. It assists and coordinates all activities that aim towards the development of a productive and lifelong relationship between the university and its alumni. The cell strives to communicate the interests and concerns of alumni, worldwide, to the university to encourage inclusive growth and commitment to excellence. The activities carried out by the cell include a monthly newsletter, alumni guest lectures and the annual alumni meet.[14]

Social causes

NLIU's partnership with NGOs in pursuance of the Supreme Court ruling pertaining to the distribution of compensation to the victims of Bhopal gas tragedy has been widely appreciated. The university adopted the village Kesla to provide legal assistance and creating awareness amongst the tribal block of the area. The students of the university had been actively associated with the Narmada Bachao Andolan and played an important role in helping the oustees in registering their grievances with the Grievance Redressal Authority (GRA). The university has to its name a partnership with the Bhopal District Courts in organizing Lok Adalats, whereby students participate in settling disputes.

People United for Law, Education and Rehabilitation (PULER) is an initiative of the students of the University which aims at imparting legal education and spreading legal awareness, especially in rural areas. The cell has done a commendable job by organizing part-time classes for children and adults in the neighbouring villages.

Projects

The university has fostered and developed partnerships both at the national and international levels. The University's national and international collaborations include World Bank Projects on Environment Management and Capacity Building, World Bank Project on Land Management, the DFID Project on Police Reforms, Food and Agricultural Organisation Italy's project on "Madhya Pradesh District Poverty Initiative Project Preparation Mission (Land Tenure and Administrative Component)". The National Research Projects which have been taken up by the university include the Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India project on the Preparation of the reading materials illustrative of the requirements of patenting, an International Workshop on Patent Claim Writing, a series of workshops on patent claim writing, "Development of Computerized Expert System in Administrative Law", undertaken by the Govt. of M.P.

Other collaborations include NLIU’s collaboration with IIIT on "Cyber Law and Jurisprudence", NHRC's project on "Water stagnation leading to death of Tribals in Balaghat", N.U.J.S., Kolkata project on State-Wise Profile of Criminal Justice Administration. M.P. State Road Development Authority Project on Legal Consultancy Services. The university is also involved in a research project in collaboration with United Nations Development Program (UNDP)India on ‘Examining and Strengthening Informal Justice Systems in Madhya Pradesh.

The Centre for Advanced Studies and Research on Intellectual Property (CASRIP) at the University of Washington, Seattle, USA, offers scholarships to two students every year to attend a summer workshop on intellectual property. Fifteen students have been awarded this scholarship till date. Various other scholarships have been regularly endowed upon the students of the Institute which entitle them to financial aid, and training and internship opportunities.

The institution has been a partner institute for Surana & Surana National Trial Advocacy Moot Court Competition.

Gallery

See also

References

  1. ↑ UGC, Recognized State Universities.
  2. ↑ Outlook: 2013 Outlook College Survey, Top 15 Colleges for Law (2013).
  3. ↑ Education Info India, List of Universities in M.P. (Last accessed 05/09 2013)
  4. ↑ Virudhika NLIU, About NLIU (2012) (Last accessed: 05/09 2013)
  5. ↑ NLIU Media Committee (2008), Director's Address, Originally penned by Prof. Dr. S.S. Singh (Last accessed: 05/09/2013 Available at: PunjabColleges.com)
  6. ↑ Madhya Pradesh State Legislature, National Law Institute University Act, 1997 (Last Accessed: 05/09/2013 PDF)
  7. ↑ College Information, Profile of the National Law Institute University (Last accessed: 05/09 2013)
  8. ↑ NLIU MCA, NLIU MCA Blog: "[The MCA] was established in 2002." (Last accessed 05/09/2013)
  9. ↑ NLIU Cares, History (2011).
  10. ↑ NLIU ADRC, About Us (2012).
  11. ↑ NLIU Centre for Business and Commercial Law, About CBCL (2009) (Last accessed: 05/09/2013)
  12. ↑ NLIU, Indian Law Review - Inaugural Edition (2009).
  13. ↑ NLIU Journal of Intellectual Property Law, Inaugural Edition - Cover (2012).
  14. ↑ www.nliualumni.com

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