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All You need to know about West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences
WEST BENGAL NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF JURIDICAL SCIENCES
The West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences was established under the WBNUJS Act, 1999 (West Bengal Act IX of 1999) adopted by the West Bengal Legislature in July, 1999.The University was notified under Clause (f) of Section 2 of the UGC Act, 1956 in August 2004 and has been granted permanent affiliation by the Bar Council of India in July 2005.
The Founder-Vice Chancellor was Professor N.R. Madhava Menon, a former Professor of law of Delhi University and Founder-Director, National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bangalore, who is credited with revolutionizing the field of legal education in India, by starting the concept of “national law schools”, as opposed to the traditional law colleges prevalent before.
NUJS campus is located in the Salt Lake city of Kolkata overlooking the Eastern Metropolitan Bypass. The campus is well connected to the railway stations in Kolkata, the Kolkata airport and other well known destinations in Kolkata such as Park Street and Victoria Memorial. The NUJS campus is spread over an area of five acres of land comprising of an academic block, the halls of residence and a few flats for the faculties. In 2006, NUJS was allotted a 50-acre (200,000 m2) plot in Rajarhat, an upscale township, which is being developed by the West Bengal government. NUJS’ central building is an example of the Modernist school of architecture, characterised by minimalist design and open spaces.
The Chief Justice of India is the Chancellor of NUJS and is also the Chairman of the General Council, the supreme policy-making body of the University. This set-up provides an aura of exclusivity and rare stature to these National Law Schools in India. Professor Dr. P. Ishwara Bhat is the Vice-Chancellor of the University. The motto of the University is Yuktiheena Vicharetu Dharmahnih Prajayate (Judgement devoid of logic destroys Dharma).
The objectives of the University inter alia are to:
- advance and disseminate learning and knowledge of law and legal processes and their role in national development
- promote legal knowledge and to make law and the legal process efficient instruments of social development
- develop in the student and research scholar a sense of responsibility to serve society in the field of law by developing skills with regard to advocacy, legal service, legislation, law reforms and the like
- promote inter-disciplinary study of law in relation to management, technology, international cooperation and development.
Faculty
Teachers in NUJS have attended Western universities such as Columbia University, University of Oxford, Vanderbilt University, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of Nottingham, University of Essex, and Emory University amongst others. Lecturers educated in India have been and/or are alumni of institutions such as NLSIU, NALSAR University of Law, GNLU, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Presidency College, Calcutta, St. Stephen’s College, Delhi and, in a recent trend, NUJS itself. The NUJS faculty has published in journals such as European Intellectual Property Review, International Journal of Biotechnology, Journal of World Investment and Trade, Yale Journal of Law and Technology among others.
In addition to lectures by permanent faculty members, the university organises lectures and interactive seminars attended by jurists, lawyers and academicians from India and abroad. NUJS has four major annual lectures: K.C. Basu Endowment Lecture (Law & Economics), Durga Das Basu Memorial Lecture (Constitutional law), Ford Foundation Lecture (Human Rights) and the Convocation Address. Visitors who have delivered other lectures include Lord Robin Auld, Sir Igor Judge, Justice Zakaria Yacoob from the Constitutional Court of South Africa, Justice V. R. Krishna Iyer, Justice M.N. Venkatachaliah, Professor Upendranath Baxi, Ram Jethmalani, Indira Jaising, Vandana Shiva, Bibek Debroy, Jayati Ghosh, Helmut Goerlich, David Nimmer and Manoranjan Mohanty.
Library
The university has a large law library. It also has a considerably large social science section. journals such as the Harvard and Cambridge Law Reviews, the law reviews of the respective National Law Universities of India, such as the NLSIU, GNLU and NALSAR, the journals of the Indian Law Institute and the Bar Council of India and reputed social science journals such as the Social Scientist, Indian Economic and Social History Review, and the Studies in History are also kept in the library.
NUJS also holds institutional memberships with leading libraries in the cities such as the British Council Library and the American Information Resource Center. Besides this, law students from other universities are encouraged to use the library for research and study.
The NUJS library houses over 20,000 titles and, owing largely to a donation from the estate of the late Justice Durga Das Basu, contains many rare books of historical importance. The reading room has computers linked to major Indian and international online legal databases. The library is wi-fi enabled, so that students are able to access the internet from their personal computers while researching. In addition to the main library, each School of the University has its library.
Besides academics there are ample number of activities which students can take part in. Students can take part in internal university rounds for debating and mooting, and participate in various prestigious moot courts and debates based on the rank that they acquire. Academic writing is encouraged and students can send their papers and articles to journals or present them at a paper presentation. NUJS hosts a cultural fest called Outlawed alongside a sports fest called Invicta. The NUJS Sports Committee also organizes a large number of inter batch sporting events. One can also access the sports facilities at Sports Authority of India due to a collaboration that they with the university. The NUJS Cultural Committee also organizes various inter batch events where the students can showcase their skills. Regular theatre presentations and some film screenings are also organized. NUJS also hosts conferences and moot court competitions. Volunteering or taking part in the organization of these events can help immensely in skill development of students. The NUJS Legal Aid Society organizes various legal aid camps in and around Kolkata. NUJS also has a student run legal aid clinic. Students can take part in various activities of the Legal Aid Society in order to get first hand exposure and learn the law by experience. Students are able to hone their research skills alongside their communication skills by participating in such activities.
Degrees and courses
B.A./B. Sc. LL. B (Hons.)
The admission shall be based exclusively on the performance in the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT). However, to qualify for admission, the candidate:
Must have passed the Higher Secondary School Examination (10+2) or an examination equivalent thereof, securing, in aggregate, not less than 50% in all the core subjects and English put together.
The five-year undergraduate course is divided into ten semesters This programme offers advanced legal education with an emphasis on critical thinking and self-enquiry on the one hand and acquisition of practical skills and knowledge on the other.
LL.M programme
The LL.M degree course is a one-year post graduate course, offering specializations in two streams – (i) International and Comparative law (ii) Corporate and Commercial law . This programme is interested in attracting students who either wish to join academia or seek to acquire advanced research skills before joining the legal profession. The admission is based exclusively on the performance in the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT). To qualify for admission, the candidate should have secured LL.B degree or its equivalent from a recognized university, having obtained not less than 55% marks in the aggregate.
ACADEMIC REPUTATION AND RANKING
LexisNexis Halsbury’s Law Monthly rates NUJS as a Tier One law school, jointly with the NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad, and the National Law School of India University(NLSIU), Bangalore, and states that NUJS’s “placement process is at par with the other two colleges in the top tier. In 2009 Outlook (a major current affairs and culture magazine) ranked NUJS as the second best law school in India (behind NLSIU). In 2008, in a ranking conducted jointly by the Wall Street Journal and Mint (a business newspaper of the Hindustan Times group), NUJS was rated as the third best law school in India (behind NLSIU and NALSAR), with the best “pedagogic systems and process” amongst all law schools in the country. Overall, the survey awarded NUJS a score of 607 out of 800, while NLSIU and NALSAR achieved scores of 621 and 609 respectively. In 2010 Lawyers Update magazine ranked the faculty at NUJS as the best in India.
The popular press has described NUJS as one of the top three NLU (The Hindu);one of the most prestigious institutions for legal education in the country (The Telegraph); and a university whose students’ moot court achievements put Kolkata on the world map in less than three years (The Times of India).
NUJS Campus Recruitment / Placement
Recruitment, ever since the very first batch graduated, has seen participation from some of the finest international and national firms as well as the biggest corporate houses. NUJS graduates have done an exceptional job and this has resulted in the university earning an enviable reputation in the job market. A large number of graduates of NUJS have been recruited by premier law firms of India and abroad by way of a student run campus recruitment process. Recruitment for the batch graduating in 2008 marked the advent of international law firms including Magic Circlefirms who have picked up students for Training Contracts at Allen & Overy, LLP, Clifford Chance, LLP, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, LLP, Linklaters, Herbert Smith, LLP among others. The domestic law firms which have recruited students from NUJS include Luthra & Luthra Law Offices, Khaitan & Co, Amarchand Mangaldas, AZB & Partners, Trilegal, and many others. Among companies, ITC, Mc Kinsey, ICICI Bank, Reliance Infocomm, Tata Sons, Infosys and many more have recruited from campus.SEBI the capital markets regulator in India has also recruited students from NUJS.
Some graduates, pursue careers in litigation by joining the chambers of Senior Advocates in the Supreme Court of India or High Courts & Trial Courts. Many graduates enter the litigation space after gaining some work experience in the corporate sector, which adds to their skill-set as lawyers.
Law teaching: Some graduates have also embarked on a career in law teaching. NUJS graduates have been recruited by the School of Law, Singapore Management University, NLS and NUJS itself as assistant professors and lecturers.
Careers in policy analysis and governance: A new breed of graduate lawyers have begun to venture into the domain of policy think-tanks and governance. In India, the alumni are strewn across major research and policy bodies that include the PRS Legislative in New Delhi, the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, the Hindu Policy Centre, Chennai and so forth. Students have also ventured into marrying media and journalism with their core expertise in the law. Alumni have studied specialised media and journalism courses in leading schools, such as the Asian College of Journalism in India and at leading colleges and universities abroad, such as the Columbia University, USA.
SCHOLASTIC ACHIEVEMNTS
Graduates from NUJS have received many prestigious scholarships at premier universities abroad, including the Felix Scholarship to Oxford University, the Vanderbilt Scholarship (NYU), Shell Centenary Scholarship (Oxford), the J.N. Tata Endowment Scholarship, the Chevening scholarship and the Rhodes scholarship.
NUJS students have won the Rhodes Scholarship in 2006 (Shibani Ghosh) and 2013 (Amba Kak). Other notable recent achievements include securing the Commonwealth Scholarship in 2012 for pursuing higher studies in the UK. Many students have also collected the INLAKS scholarship on a regular basis over the years.
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All You need to know about West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences
All You need to know about West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences