Lords Universal Law College may lose affiliation

Lords Universal Law College in Goregaon may lose its affiliation with Mumbai University. The University has directed the affiliation-department of the varsity to start the process in this regard on Thursday. The development came as students of the institution aggressively pursue the matter with the university in this regard.

"We have initiated the de-affiliation process as the college didn't comply to our directives despite several reminders. Even an order of grievance committee was thrown in the dustbin, which is a serious lapse on their part," said Dr MA Khan, registrar. He added that students would then be transferred to nearby colleges.

He admitted that the college was facing various allegations since the past few years but University neither imposed any penalty nor took any other action.

The college runs three and five-year law courses. Students had complained that the college was charging exorbitant fee at students grievance cell of the university in July last year. They had also alleged lack of infrastructure at the institution.

Fee for unaided law colleges ranges from Rs9,000 to Rs10,000, but the college was reportedly charging Rs35,000 for LLB (3 years) and Rs25,000 for LLB (5 years). The college didn't have approval of the Bar Council as well after 2012-13.

During the hearings, college authorities remained absent. Then students grievance cell of Mumbai University passed an order against the college to return the fees and provide other necessary facilitates. "However, the college failed to comply with the order," said Dr Khan.

On being asked about the development, NG Meshram, principal of the college, said: "Let the university come to us. We maintain that we have all papers in place. Refund of the fee is being looked at by the management as its a Linguistic minority (Gujarati) institution."