Taking the law education to a higher level, Meghalaya Government is setting up a permanent campus of National Law University in the state.
Chief Minister, Conrad K Sangma on Monday handed over a plot of land for setting up of a permanent campus of National Law University Meghalaya and Meghalaya State Judicial Academy at the village of Mawpdang Mawkhanu to Justice Sanjib Banerjee, Chief Justice, High Court of Meghalaya & Chancellor of the National Law University.
Addressing the gathering, Chief Minister Sangma said, “A regenerative economy develops and is based largely on the human capital and hence there is a need to start somewhere and hence our policy has moved towards ensuring that we invest in this human capital that we believe is the future for our state.”
With India being a young nation, he encouraged every single youth must contribute in a positive manner towards the growth of the nation. He further said youth needed to be provided the necessary platform to be productively contributing citizens
“Students who even while pursuing their education can contribute to the needs of the government by way of research, analysis and documentation,” he said.
The ceremony was also attended by Law Minister Dr M Ampareen Lyngdoh, Education Minister Rakkam A Sangma, Justice HS Thangkhiew and Justice Biswadeep Bhattacharjee the judge of Meghalaya High court beside others.
Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee said that it was the endeavor to create a conducive atmosphere to learning and discovering than to learn by the books.
“We want this university to be an institute where we share with you the tools and the methods,” he added. He also hoped that the university in future will see more induction of domicile students.
He also urged everyone to support the institution to grow as the National Law University Meghalaya can be an institution that can be showcased to the rest of the world.
Talking to the Media, Chief Justice of Meghalaya High Court Justice Justice Sanjib Banerjee, who is the Chancellor of the University, said there is a need for Law school in Meghalaya.”
He said several innovative steps are being taken.
“There was a crying need for the Law school over here and the law school with abit of a difference , we have been innovative and hopefully, time will tell we succeed or not,” Justice Banerjee said.
“ We have a very dynamic vice chancellor and we are taking several innovative steps. So far the administration was concerned, setting it up, well it was my work and there after he takes over. We have a very encouraging bunch of students and we are all having a good time interacting with them,” he added.
Asked, the Chief Justice said, “If I hadn’t been a public servant over here, I wouldn’t have know what was necessary, I have been to far corners, we have driven a lot of infrastructure projects hopefully down the line kind off downstream projects will come up.”
50 seats will be reserved for Meghalaya students in National Law university
The Vice Chancellor of National Law University, Meghalaya Prof Indrajit Dube said the University will provide courses in Master of Science in Policy Analytics and that will be very unique in the country.
“We are going to offer a Master of Science in Policy Science Analytics and that will be very unique in the country because until now the policy framework in the country is mostly a perceptive base not data driven. So this particular course will enable the learner how to analyse the data, how to structure the data and then come up with a predictive framework,” Prof Indrajit Dube said.
The university in its first year has 60 seats which according to Prof Dube will be increased for the under graduate and post graduate courses in the coming admission as 100 seats will be kept for the country and out of that 50 will be for students from Meghalaya, 50 for the students from rest of the country and 50 will be meant for the foreign Nationals.
The construction is expected to start soon. This law University will cater to students from all across the region with a special reservation for the students from Meghalaya.
It may be mentioned that the classes of the National Law University have started at a temporary campus and will be shifted to its permanent location after the completion of the new campus. Around 50 acres of land were allotted to National Law University, while 15 acres will be meant for Judicial Academy.