Supreme Court refuses to entertain plea for 3-year LLB course after school

New Delhi [India], April 22 (ANI): The Supreme Court on Monday refused to entertain a plea seeking direction to the Centre and the Bar Council of India to set up an expert committee to explore the possibility of starting a three-year LLB course in place of five-year after class 12.

A bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud and Justice JB Pardiwala said that they need mature people to come into the profession, and the current five-year course has proven to be very beneficial.

As the court was not convinced to entertain the plea, the petitioner sought to withdraw the PIL, which was allowed. The plea was filed by advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay.

“A student may be perfectly fine with opting for science in 12th grade, but it would be harassing and encumbering for him to mandatorily study Arts or Commerce in the course. It is a transgression of Article 21, as the right to free will is being violated,” the petitioner has said.

According to the petitioner, B. Tech through IITs takes 4 years of non-superfluous education, and that too in a specified field of engineering, whereas BA-LLB or BBA-LLB through the National Law Universities (NLUs) consumes 5 years of a student’s life while providing knowledge of arts and commerce, an unrelated and superfluous stream. Hence, a 5-year course is irrational.

The lengthy and exorbitant course is disincentivizing students from pursuing law. The extraordinary and poor students are rather pursuing engineering, civil services, or other courses. BA and LLB, or BBA and LLB, are both graduation courses, and thus there is no need for both in a student’s career.

Annual fees of a five-year course are comparatively greater than that of a three-year course, the petition said.

“It is denying the students to pursue a single graduation course after 12th grade. The purpose of any Course is to provide just the essential knowledge required for a student’s career and not to barrage a student with all kinds of knowledge, as they are innumerable. In no way is BA essential to studying LLB. It is certainly good to know it but it is entirely superfluous,” the petition said.