Need new building for law, more seat capacity for LLM: Maha Students Union

Maharashtra Students Union MSU have written to the University of Mumbairsquos vicechancellor demanding to increase the seat capacity for LLM a postgraduate law degree from 600 to 1500 It has also demanded a new independent stateoftheart building for the law departmentHigh demand less seatsAdvocate Siddharth Ingle who is also the founderpresident of the MSU said ldquoThere are a total of 279 approved law colleges in Maharashtra which have 26340 student capacity for LLB and BLS courses This number has increased by about 40 per cent over the past five years and is likely to double in the next five years given the growing trend of law coursesrdquoIngle added ldquoOut the 279 law colleges some are affiliated to 11 nonagricultural universities in the state out of which 31 per cent or about 88 colleges are affiliated to Mumbai university for the BLS and LLB course respectively and the total student intake capacity of the university is 11860 Therefore the demand for Master in Law or LLM courses has increased significantlyrdquoThe following are the statistics of the past two years of the Common Entrance Test CET conducted by the University of Mumbai for the LLM programme In 201920 total 3539 students and in 202021 total 4725 students appeared for the CET and nearly 2939 and 4125 students were deprived of direct admissions at Mumbai University due to shortage of seatsrdquo17 colleges running without qualified facultiesThe union has also alleged that 17 private law colleges affiliated to the university do not have the required infrastructure and qualified faculties as per the University Grants Commission UGC and Bar Council of Indiarsquos Legal Education Rules 2008 guidelines The union further claims that these colleges charge exorbitant fees almost six to seven times higher than prevailing university fee slabsIngle said ldquoThese 17 colleges are in Mumbai Thane Konkan Kalyan and Palghar and are affiliated to Mumbai University They charge Rs 40000 to Rs 50000 as a yearly fee as compared to R6000 plus that the University of Mumbai charges Students from the poorer section enrol to these colleges only because of its affiliation hence we have requested for an increase in seats at the university itselfrdquolsquoNeed a separate buildingrsquoAccording to Ingle ldquoUMLA is at present operating from Shankarrao Chavan Training Institute at universityrsquos Kalina campus and has a mere 120 intake of students The building also occupies a wellknown film producerrsquos academy and an office in the other section of the university We have demanded converting the said building into a state of art Department of Law with computers and a hightech library which would help extensive research to be done in matters of lawrdquo said IngleldquoBoth the vicechancellor and the registrar have assured to look into our demand and to present them before the Board of Studies and Management Council in their upcoming meeting and a decision would be taken soonrdquo he addedSudhir Puranik Registrar Mumbai University has confirmed the submission made by MSU and said ldquoThe university will consider the request positivelyrdquoThe attempts to contact Manan Kumar Mishra chairman of the Bar Council of India did not yield resultsDemands raised To increase the student intake capacity of the Master of Law or LLM course from 600 to 1500 Establishment of a new independent stateoftheart building for the law department As per the intake capacity recruit professors permanently and appointment of administrative staff as per the norms and rules of the UGC Provide all the mandatory uptodate facilities in the new independent modern building subject as per the rules of the UGC