Find a suitable place for Government law college within Chennai city limits, Madras High Court tells T.N.

Madras High Court urges State government to relocate Chennai Dr. Ambedkar Government Law College closer to city center.

In what could be music to the ears of students aspiring to pursue law in Chennai, the Madras High Court on Thursday said, it expected the State government to find a suitable place within the city limits, and as close as possible to the High Court, for the Chennai Dr. Ambedkar Government Law College.

First Division Bench of Chief Justice Sanjay V. Gangapurwala and Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy wondered how the campuses of a college whose very name begins with the word Chennai could be functioning from Pattarai Perambudur in Tiruvallur district and Pudupakkam in Chengalpattu district.

The judges agreed with advocate N.G.R. Prasad that the students would be at a disadvantage because of their inability to attend the court proceedings regularly, listen to frequent lectures from senior counsel and take up part-time work at law firms while pursuing their masters course due to the distance factor.

The Chief Justice also expressed concern over a metropolitan city such as Chennai not having a government law college at all ever since the Chennai Dr. Ambedkar Government Law College, popularly known as Madras Law College, for over a century, was bifurcated and shifted to Tiruvallur and Chengalpattu districts in 2018.

Originally, the Madras Law College was functioning from a heritage building located inside the Madras High Court campus. However, the building suffered damages in 2015 due to the Metro Rail project and was declared unsafe, necessitating the shifting of the institution elsewhere, until the completion of the repair works.

However, in 2017 and 2018, the students filed a batch of writ petitions in the High Court complaining about the distance that they had to travel to reach the two new campuses and the lack of facilities there. The High Court issued a slew of directions to the government to provide infrastructure and transportation facilities.

In the meantime, since the heritage building, that once housed the law college, had been repaired and handed over to the High Court, Mr. Prasad insisted that the government law college should be established back in Chennai city so that the students get to benefit from being in close proximity to the court complex.