The BCI decision to enforce an age limit for admission to law courses has come under severe criticism from students, teachers and the lawyers’ community. Student organisations have been staging a protest on the university campus for over a month now. They said the BCI could not take such a random decision and they wanted the university to formally register its protest with the council.

The law faculty of the university had convened a meeting of law college principals and faculty members on February 16. “There is much resentment prevailing among the law teachers and this was reflected at the meeting. The meeting resolved to oppose the decision and as a formal protest, the law faculty — on behalf of the UoP — sent a letter to the BCI demanding withdrawal of the decision,” said Sureshchandra Bhosale, dean of the university’s law department.

Even at the recent meeting of the academic council of the university, the members had unanimously opposed the move. “There is no logic behind implementing an age bar for candidates wanting to pursue law courses,” said Vaijayanti Joshi, principal of ILS Law College.

“There is no such age bar for other courses. Many professionals do law course at a late age to get added knowledge of the Acts about their professions. For example, insurance agents or bank professionals take admission for law course. As there are no special courses designed, they have to take admission for the full-time law course. They will not have to go for the regular course if such special courses are introduced,” she said.