The Supreme Court on Monday heard a Public Interest Litigation seeking the constitution of a Legal Education Commission to review the syllabus, curriculum and duration of LLB and LLM courses in India.
The petitioner also argued that while India attracts top talent into institutions like IITs and other professional fields, the current five-year integrated LLB programme after Class 12 has failed to attract the best students compared to other professional courses that are typically completed in four years.
According to the petition, the University Grants Commission’s New Education Policy encourages most professional degrees to be structured within four years, whereas legal education still largely follows the five-year integrated model.
However, the Chief Justice Surya Kant stressed that reforms in legal education must involve wider consultation among stakeholders and not just UGC.
“Legal education affects multiple stakeholders, including the judiciary, the bar, academia, and legal scholars, and therefore any reform cannot be based only on one set of ideas.”
The PIL further pointed to international models of legal education in countries such as the UK, Singapore, and Malaysia, where law programmes typically follow a three-year academic structure followed by one year of professional training, making the overall pathway shorter and more practice-oriented. The petitioner claims to have discussed the proposal with several National Law University (NLU) chancellors who reportedly considered the demand “reasonable.”
Referring to the impact of the present legal education system on career progression, the CJI also highlighted concerns related to eligibility for judicial service examinations.
“In this practical part, we are facing problems in judicial service eligibility also. The students, the poor young girls, are really in despair because how can they wait for three years to complete? They have their own issues and challenges.”
The Court also indicated that any major change to legal education would require deliberation among institutions responsible for regulating the profession.
“Judiciary is only one of the stakeholders. Academia is there, the profession is there, the Bar is there, and eminent jurists and scholars are also stakeholders.”
The Court also referred to the historical evolution of the five-year law programme, noting that the original idea behind the integrated course was to create dedicated law students with a strong grounding in humanities and social sciences. The CJI pointed out that the objective of this structure was to ensure that future lawyers developed a broader social and intellectual perspective before fully engaging with legal studies.
Through the PIL, the petitioner has requested the court to direct the formation of an expert commission to conduct a comprehensive review of legal education and recommend reforms aimed at improving accessibility, quality, and alignment with global standards.The matter is listed for 20th April.