Sept. 19: The Bar Council of India has rejected Dispur’s plea to allow the 94-year-old Bishnu Ram Medhi Government Law College to enrol students for the three-year law course for the current academic session.

The council’s decision has plunged the future of hundreds of law students into uncertainty.

BCI secretary S. Radhakrishnan told The Telegraph from New Delhi today that the council’s legal and education committee had decided not to allow the college to admit students till it fulfilled all the criteria set by the council.

“The BCI has gone through the reports submitted by the principal of BRM Law College and the registrar of Gauhati University. The council has also received Assam chief secretary P.C. Sharma letter, requesting it to allow the college to enrol students for 2008-09. Members of the legal and education committee were not convinced with the contents of the reports and the chief secretary’s letter,” he said.

“We cannot allow a government college to admit students in its present condition when only assurances are being given for improvement. A BCI inspection team visited the college and concluded that new students could not be allowed to enrol under the current situation,” he added.

The BCI had imposed a ban on the college in June against admitting students into its three-year law course as the institution had failed to fulfil certain basic conditions like a permanent campus, permanent teachers, a standard library and classrooms.

“We have not yet withdrawn the affiliation accorded to the college to run the three-year law course and have given it time to improve the conditions. The BCI will again consider the issue of allowing admission for the current academic session as soon as the college fulfils the criteria set by the council,” the BCI secretary said.

The Gauhati University Students’ Bar Association, a united platform of 13 law colleges, termed the development as “an exposé of the Tarun Gogoi government’s hollow claim to improve the educational scenario”.

“Gogoi only announced that the BRM Government Law College would introduce the five-year integrated law course from this year. Now the college cannot even admit students for its three-year course. Will the chief minister respond now?” the association’s president Dipankar Das said.

He said many brilliant students who were planning to take admission into the three-year law course were facing a bleak future.

The All Guwahati Students’ Union pinned the responsibility for the mess at the BRM Law College on Dispur.