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India's legal fraternity was at one time the admiration of the world. The best minds gravitated towards it, and both the Bench and the Bar dazzled with an incandescence that was out of this world. India's struggle for Independence was waged and won by stalwarts of the profession. All the freedom heroes - Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, C.Rajagopalachari, Rajendra Prasad, S. Satyamurti, C. Subramaniam and others who sacrificed their all for the country - were lawyers.

That was not all. Many of the luminaries of that profession were also members of India's Constituent Assembly, taking a leading part in framing what undoubtedly is one of the best written Constitutions of the world. Dr B. R. Ambedkar, whose monumental contribution to Constitution-making has justifiably made him one of the venerated immortals of India's history, was ably assisted by the likes of Alladi Krishnaswami Iyer, Tej Bahadur Sapru, and K. M. Munshi who were themselves the resplendent stars of the legal firmament.

Judges and lawyers were respected role models, setting the tone and lifting the quality of public life, by their professional and personal integrity, penetrating intellect, dedication to public causes, philanthropic disposition and commitment to public service. The last few decades have witnessed a rapid and deplorable fall both in the standards of legal education and the conduct of lawyers and judges. Reports of lawyers taking to the streets and indulging in vandalism and violence and repulsive anti-social activities and judges becoming suspects and accused in police investigations for serious penal offences, including corruption, were unimaginable until a few decades ago. It may well be that the present generation of lawyers and judges, born many years after Independence, have no idea of the glorious legacy of India's legal profession and, therefore, think nothing of tarnishing its reputation. It may also be that they have become victims of the general political and social environment in which adopting short cuts and making a fast buck has become the norm.

INITIATIVE WORTH EMULATION

The Bar Council too has not lived up to the hallowed tenets and traditions for which the legal profession in India was rightly famous. It seems to be unable or unwilling to enforce its own standards, modest as they are. For instance, its rules require that every recognised law college should provide a mere twenty hours of lecture a week; every law college, for the purpose of obtaining approval or affiliation, must have in its teaching staff in its first year a whole time Principal and at least two other whole-time teachers and from its third year onwards it must have two more whole-time teachers.

A census taken in the late 1990s revealed that of the 468 law colleges existing in the country then, teacher per institution average was 2.38 which is less than half of even the feeble five full-time teacher per institution prescribed by the Bar Council. As regards the quality of teaching, the less said the better.

In this context, one cannot praise enough the steps taken recently by a group of public-spirited members of Chennai's legal fraternity to improve the quality of legal education in law colleges and universities, and involve the community of law students, practising lawyers and serving and retired judges in a laudable effort to come together and make a collective effort to reverse the ugly trends by imparting proper training and giving the necessary orientation to the law students. For starters, senior advocates and seasoned judges, renowned for their intellect, will themselves take classes and be generally available for mentoring the students in the colleges and novices in the profession. It is an initiative that is worth emulation by other States as well.

B. S. RAGHAVAN

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