A Response to the India Today Rankings from some NUJS Alumni

The views expressed in this open letter are those of the authors solely.

To
Mr. Aroon Purie
Editor-in-Chief
India Today

3rd June 2006

Dear Sir

Sub: Non-inclusion of NUJS in India Today’s 2006 Rankings of Law Universities

This letter has reference to the recent rankings of Universities published by your magazine (in its issue for the week May 30-June 5, 2006), and in particular, to the non-inclusion of the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata [NUJS] in the list of the best twenty law colleges/Universities purportedly identified by your magazine.

The objective of the signatories to this letter may be usefully clarified at this juncture. Our objective is to demonstrate, through cogent evidence and examples, how the non-inclusion of NUJS in the list of ranked law universities is entirely unconscionable, and clearly reflective of gross negligence on your part. For the reasons elaborated below, we further demand an apology for the non-inclusion of NUJS in the ranking of law universities, and a reasoned re-consideration of its appropriate place in such rankings.

At the outset, we are aware that the ranking of colleges and Universities is an inherently subjective exercise, and that there can exist, to an extent, legitimate differences of opinion amongst informed analysts. For this reason, our objective is the following paragraphs will be to clearly demonstrate that while the exact place of ranking of NUJS might be a matter of debate, its non-inclusion in the top twenty law universities in India, is entirely unjustified and unacceptable.

In a short span of six years, NUJS has clearly established itself as a premier law school, not merely at a national, but at an international level. We would be interested in hearing your response to the following (illustrative) pieces of evidence.

Academic Excellence

Alumni of NUJS have studied at, and have presently secured admission to, the most reputed postgraduate law courses internationally. For example, the only Indian law student to secure the Rhodes Scholarship for 2006 is an alumnus of NUJS. Further, NUJS students have also secured the prestigious Felix Scholarship to study at Oxford University (2005), and the Vanderbilt Scholarship to study at New York University School of Law (2006). Other Universities at which alumni of NUJS are presently studying (or have secured admission to) include Harvard Law School, Cambridge University, Cornell University, the London School of Economics and Political Science, School for Oriental and African Studies, American University and the National University of Singapore.

Further, students and faculty of NUJS have published in practically every noteworthy Indian legal journal, and a number of prominent foreign ones. Prominent examples include the Economic and Political Weekly, the Georgetown International Environmental Law Review, the Journal of Intellectual Property Rights, the Indian Bar Review and the Indian Journal of International Law.

Eminent scholars who have lectured or taught at NUJS include Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen, Mr. Fali S Nariman, Professor Upendra Baxi, Professor T.K. Oomen, Justice A.M. Bhattacharjee and Justice Yakub (of the South African Constitutional Court).

To our knowledge, this record of academic excellence is rivaled by few, if any, Indian law schools in recent years.

National and International Competitions

The performance of NUJS in various national and international competitions (including but not limited to moot court competitions, which are exclusively for law universities) is also unmatched. In our considered opinion, the consistent (and cumulative) performance of our University in this regard is nothing short of exemplary. For example, NUJS has emerged victorious in three international moot court competitions, viz, the Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot, Vienna, the Stetson Moot Court Competition on International Environmental Law and the Willem C. Vis (East) International Commercial Arbitration, Hong Kong. It may interest you to note that, with regard to the Vienna Moot, NUJS was the first Indian and only second Asian law University to emerge Champions. Further, NUJS has represented India at the international rounds of the prestigious Phillip C. Jessup Moot on three occasions, and registered the second-best ever Indian performance at the Manfred Lachs Moot. At the national level, NUJS has won practically every significant Moot Competition over the past six years. Illustrative examples include the Bar Council of India Moot (2001-02), the Kerala Law Academy Moot (for four consecutive years), and the M.M. Singhvi Moot (2004-05).

The performance of NUJS students in other extra-curricular and co-curricular activities has been equally impressive. For example, debaters from NUJS have ranked highly in prestigious international debates, including the 2004 Worlds Debating Championships (first and second ranking speakers from the South Asian region), the 2005 Oxford Parliamentary Debate (first and fourth ranking speakers from Asia) and the 2006 All-Asians Debate (qualifying for the octa-finals).

Campus Recruitment

For two consecutive years, NUJS has had near cent percent placement in its Campus Recruitment Programme. For example, Amarchand & Mangaldas & Suresh A. Shroff & Co., widely regarded as the premier Indian law firm, has cumulatively (over the past two years) recruited over thirty five alumni of NUJS. To the best of our knowledge, the cumulative recruitment of this number of students by Amarchand & Mangaldas is unmatched by any other law school. Other leading firms where NUJS alumni are working include AZB & Partners, Luthra & Luthra Law Offices, Dua Associates, Trilegal, Economic Law Practices, Thakker & Thakker, Wadia Ghandy & Co. and New Delhi Law Offices. Other students have completed judicial clerkships at the Supreme Court, or have worked with prestigious non-governmental organizations such as South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre and Centre for Civil Society. Leading corporate entities that have recruited include Infosys, ICICI, Reliance, Tata and Sahara. Again, we would be interested in knowing exactly how many of the twenty ranked universities, even remotely match this record.

Administration and Governance

The Chancellor of NUJS is the Hon’ble Chief Justice of India. Members of the governing Council of NUJS include present and retired justices of the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India, as well as various High Courts, and many other distinguished personalities. The founding Vice Chancellor of NUJS was Dr. N.R. Madhava Menon, an internationally renowned academic, who also served as the founding Director of the National Law School of India University, Bangalore, and who is widely credited with the inception of the concept of five-year law schools in India. The present Vice Chancellor of NUJS is Dr. B.S. Chimni, a former Professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University and an internationally reputed scholar of international law. We believe the astute management and leadership NUJS has been blessed with, is further evidence of our credible claim to being a leading Indian law school today.

We would like a speedy response to the concerns raised in this letter. You would appreciate that we, as students, are entirely unaware about whether NUJS was, at any stage, considered for the rankings. To our knowledge, and as per the inquiries made by us, no request for factual information was ever made to the University. In the event that the college was under consideration and factual information was, in fact, requested from the administration, we would like a clarification regarding the date and form of that request for factual information. We would be grateful for further clarifications regarding the response from the NUJS administration. In the event that any response from the NUJS administration was considered unsatisfactory or incomplete, we would be grateful for information regarding the follow-up action that was taken on your part. We hope you would agree that a magazine conducting what is claimed to be the most authoritative survey of Indian Universities is expected to take reasonable steps to contact the NUJS administration, and obtain easily verifiable statistics establishing our merit.

In conclusion, the larger issue at hand is that a University that is demonstrably within the top few ranks of Indian law schools (by any conceivable standard) has been entirely omitted in your rankings. The inevitable impact of these rankings is that a large number of prospective law students will be dissuaded from applying to NUJS, and that this may have an incalculably detrimental impact on innumerable careers. We believe that your claim of carrying out a credible, comprehensive and methodologically sound survey is proven false. We reiterate our demand for an apology, and a reasoned re-appraisal of the ranking of NUJS. In the event that you require verification of any of these claims, we assure you that the same can readily be done from the University administration, as also many sources of information in the public domain.

We regret that you have obviously paid no heed to a similar letter published in your magazine last year (in response to the 2005 rankings), by an alumnus of NUJS, Mr. Thomas Kuruvilla, enumerating largely similar grievances. We reserve the right to publicize this letter, and the issues enumerated therein, through all available means, in what we believe to be the larger interest of Indian legal education.

In anticipation of a speedy response,

Thanking you,

Yours sincerely,

Fifteen Alumni of NUJS

[ Anshumala Bansal
Ashish Jain
Ashish Singh
Avik Biswas
Biswa Batsal Patnaik
Jay Parekh
Madhumita Ghosh
Monal Mukherjee
Rishad Ahmed Chowdhury
Samarpita Deb
Sayantani Dutta
Shameek Ray
Shibani Ghosh
Tashi Choden
Ujjaini Ghosh ]