The Bar Council of India issued an advisory to Centers of Legal Education to be compassionate and considerate to the hardships of students in light of the pandemic.
The Council has issued the following specific directives to all the centers of legal education while generally advising the legal educational institutes to be considerate towards students and to lend them a helping hand during these extraordinary circumstances in case of fees .
- To frame an alternative flexible scheme for payment of fees in easy installments instead of a lumpsum payment in one stretch
- To adjust the payable fees by reducing the proportionate costs on electricity and infrastructure maintenance which are being saved due to absence of physical classes
- To sympathetically consider any specific request(s) by students concerning payment of fees keeping in mind the hardships due to the ongoing pandemic
- To lend a helping hand to troubled students and to not impose any penalty on fees and to not debar them from attending online classes in case of their inability to pay fees.
Requests to issue directions to waive off certain components like utilization of infrastructure , library and other on ground facilities that are not being utilized from the total fee were also made to the BCI.
The students pleaded that due to the pandemic, there is a general loss of income of parents owing to lay-offs, reduced salaries and losses in businesses and reasonable concessions in fee must be granted to them to face these tough times. They also stated that their cost of education has seen an increase during the pandemic due to the incurring costs on data packs, desktops/ laptops that are needed to access online classes.
Read the notification here:
