The Madras High Court today stayed a notification issued by Tamil Nadu Dr Ambedkar Law University for admission to courses offered by its School of Excellence in Law.
The notification prescribed no age limit for SC/ST candidates in the school of excellence in law, fixed age limit for 21 years for other categories in five-year law course and fixed no age limit for all community people in respect of the three-year law degree course.
Admitting a petiton filed by a city-based lawyer, B Ashok, a division bench of the Court's Madurai Bench, comprising Justice S.Manikumar and Justice V.M.Velumani, issued the stay order and ordered issue of notice to officials including the Registrar of the University, Secretaries of Ministry of law and Justice and Tamil Nadu government, Bar Council of India and University Grants Commission.
The petitioner also sought a direction to quash the notification of Bar Council of India issued on September 28, 2013, deleting the age restriction for pursuing law degree from the legal education rules 2008, based on which the Univeristy issued the notification.
The notification was against the Supreme Court judgement which said the government should ensure recommendation of the three-member committee approving the age restriction of the legal education rules 2008, the petitioner said.
Bar Council of India was not competent to delete the age restriction, he said.
Legal education should be jointly regulated by UGC and Bar Council of India and not BCI alone. The National Legal Knowledge Commission also had approved age restriction. The government, which had earlier ordered to adopt age restriction as per rules, could not say now there was no need for the restriction, the petitioner said.
