MUMBAI: Maharashtra’s top-ranked law aspirants will, for the first time in years, be unable to choose the Government Law College (GLC), Mumbai, as their first preference in the opening round of admissions, even as nearly half the law seats in the state have disappeared from the first round of the Centralised Admission Process (CAP).With GLC, the state’s oldest and most sought-after law college, kept out of the admission process and dozens of other Mumbai University-affiliated colleges also excluded for want of mandatory approvals, thousands of seats have been rendered unavailable, dramatically shrinking the choices before students.The impact is particularly severe for meritorious students. Under the CAP rules, candidates who are allotted the college they list as their first preference must compulsorily accept that seat.Rejecting it results in automatic exclusion from the admission process. With GLC absent from the first round, students who would ordinarily have listed it as their first choice are now forced to rank another college at the top of their preference list.Once allotted that college, they must join it, effectively losing the opportunity to compete for GLC should it become available in a subsequent round.GLC’s exclusion is part of a much larger disruption that has seen nearly half the law colleges in Maharashtra kept out of the first round of admissions after colleges affiliated with the University of Mumbai failed to obtain mandatory approvals.Data available with the Directorate of Higher Education (DHE) as on August 5 shows that only 102 colleges offering the three-year LLB programme, with an intake of 10,105 seats, and 66 colleges offering the five-year integrated LLB programme, with 5,955 seats, have been cleared for the first round.This is against nearly 54,000 applicants for the three-year course and 20,000 applicants for the five-year programme, drastically shrinking the options available to students.Sources said GLC has been excluded because it has failed to pay the mandatory fee to the Bar Council of India (BCI), without which it cannot obtain the approval required to participate in the admission process.It has now been paid and the college, once it receives approval, will be a part of round 2. Several other Mumbai University-affiliated law colleges are also missing for want of BCI approval.bbyThe colleges face another hurdle as well. The University of Mumbai has reportedly flagged several institutions for failing to comply with mandatory staffing norms, including the appointment of qualified principals and adequate full-time faculty.Until these deficiencies are rectified and approvals are secured, the affected colleges are unlikely to be included in the admission process.There may, however, be some relief. “A few more colleges are likely to be added after tomorrow’s court hearing,” said the principal of a law college.Under the existing admission schedule, students submit their college preferences only before the first two CAP rounds.However, sources said the CET Cell has requested the state government to allow candidates to revise and refill their option forms before the second round, once additional colleges are admitted into the process, and again before the third round if more institutions receive approval.Such a move, they said, would prevent students from being permanently locked into choices made when several prominent colleges, including GLC, were unavailable.“Maharashtra’s LLB admissions are in disarray – Someone owes young students and aspiring lawyers an explanation. Thousands of aspirants who cleared CET with hard-earned percentiles — now facing uncertainty over seats, schedules, and institute credibility. This isn’t a minor administrative hiccup. It’s a systemic compliance failure that regulators and colleges allowed to build up for years, and students are the ones paying the price with lost time, anxiety, and disrupted academic years.” Megha Yadav, a lawyer posted on social media.
