National Law University - NLU Odisha

About National Law University - NLU Odisha

National Law University, Orissa (NLUO) is a newly established National Law University. It was established as a national level institute of excellence in higher learning of law in the state of Orissa by the Government of Orissa by virtue of the Act 4 of 2008. Its first Session began in the year 2009. The University offers courses for undergraduate and graduate legal education. The university is offering integrated B.A. LL.B. and B.B.A. LL.B. courses. The university will offer streams of B.Sc LLB and BCA LLB in the coming years. The present temporary buildings of the University consist of a six storey hostel and a three floor academic building. The new campus located at campus at Naraj has an area of 30 acres already sanctioned and 20 more acres to be given soon by the Orissa government. The formal inaugural function of the University was held on the 31st of October, 2009. It was inaugurated by the the Chief Justice of India, Justice K.G.Balakrishnan.

Location  - It is located at Cuttack, Orissa

Facilities

Temporary Campus - At present, the University is housed in temporary premises. However the University is fully wi-fi enabled, with routers installed outside almost every room in in academic block and some seven or eight to a floor in the hostels. Other areas of infrastructural development are also being taken care of.

Academic Block - The academic block is currently situated in a rented building on the outskirts of the city, along the banks of the Mahanadi river. The facilities are adequate to sustain education and research in  reasonable comfort. This includes classrooms, a moot court hall, a well-appointed conference hall, faculty and administrative offices and a snack bar.

Classrooms - The classrooms are spacious, comfortable, and air-conditioned. They are equipped with the latest in audio-visual equipment, such as LCD projectors and wired sound. Usage of these facilities have been consciously integrated into the teaching curriculum. In most courses, viva voce examinations have been eschewed in favour of presentations. This not only acclimatizes students with public speaking, but also makes them familiar with tools such as Power Point and other presentation software, a valuable skill set in today’s professional environment. This emphasis on infrastructure also permits recourse to classroom strategies not seen in many law schools in the country. Film screenings are frequently organised in class, which are followed by discussions and brainstorming sessions.

Moot Court - The Moot Court Hall is the pride of the University. More than twice as large as a classroom, it is also air-conditioned, wi-fi enabled, and equipped with all the necessary audio-visual equipment. It has been designed to serve several roles. Apart from hosting moot-court competitions, it doubles up as a practice area where the students hone their mooting skills; as a hall where subject-presentations are organised; and as a venue for guest lectures by eminent personalities. Within the short existence, the University has hosted talks by several distinguished speakers, such as the political scientists Prof S K Das and Prof Ashwini Ray and the social activist Ms Medha Patkar.

Hostel - The present hostel premises are located at Cantonment Road, about five kilometres east of the Academic Block along the banks of the Mahanadi. It is also temporary as it was originally built as a set of apartments for senior IAS officers. Right now this building accommodates 120 students across six floors. The ground floor contains dining halls and recreation areas equipped with television, table-tennis tables, carom boards and so on. The space outside the building is given over to games like football and badminton. Other facilities include round-the-clock housekeeping services, broadband wi-fi access, extensive first-aid facilities and an ambulance on duty 24 hours.

Library - The library is spread across the second floor with a floor space of approx. 6000 sq.ft. It includes storage area, a reading hall (with a sitting capacity of 70 for current batch of 120 students), photocopy and printer section, new arrivals section, ebrary (E-Library) with 10 computers having wi-fi as well as LAN connectivity, a separate room exclusively earmarked for moot court preparation and discussions. The library is bifurcated into two sections namely, books and journals sections. Books section contains text as well as reference books including different encyclopaedias of different subjects. At present, there are about 3000 volumes available in this section. Journal section contains the Bare Acts, current volumes of periodicals including legal as well as non-legal refereed journals, general magazines and news papers. As regards to the Bare Acts, in addition to the Encyclopaedia of Central Acts and Rules, around 1000 individual titles have been procured and processed. Currently, more than 15 news papers are subscribed by the library. NLUO has subscribed to a number of national as well as international level databases. These include Indlaw, Thinklegal and Jstor.

Working Project - National Law University, Orissa in collaboration with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Rural Litigation & Entitlement Kendra (RLEK), a Dehradun based NGO is currently working in the State of Orissa as part of the Access to Justice Project for marginalised communities and women, backed by Department of Justice, Government of India. The project aims to legally empower the secluded classes of people of the society who are at the bottom of the pyramid in claiming their legal entitlements. The students of NLUO actively participated in the camps by assisting RLEK’s legal team in translating and explaining laws in local Oriya language for easy understanding of the community participants. Student volunteers also assisted in mobilizing community people to come forward and assert their legal entitlements thereby benefiting from the legal awareness training imparted by NLUO and RLEK.

University Societies

• Moot Society - Courtroom exercises, also known as Moots in law school parlance, are a fundamental feature of the law school experience. In the short time since its inception, the committee has sent three of its best teams for competitions in CLC (Delhi University), National Law University, Delhi and National Law University, Jodhpur. This active participation has lead to the University being invited to nearly all the prestigious moots across the country. The committee is at present working on modalities for hosting it's own national moot competition, which is remarkable considering the fledgling existence.

• Sports Committee - Sports is importance in the all round development of personality. The NLUO Sports Committee conducts intra-university tournaments regularly and is instrumental in arranging student participation in events organised by other institutions, such as “INVICTA” conducted by NUJS. The University has an arrangement with the Cuttack Sports Stadium for students to avail of the facilities.

• Public Relation Committee - The Public Relation Committee was the first committee to be constituted at NLUO. It comprises of creative individuals who have taken it upon themselves to build a cachet for the university. They have undertaken and completed successfully many projects such as designing the University logo, planning excursions, contributing ideas for the University website and jersey.     

• Mess Committee - The Mess Committee ensures that the food served at the Mess has the right mix of palatability and nutrition. The Mess Committee, after reviewing student suggestions, decides on the menu. It strives to cater to the taste buds of the students as well as address demands, expectations and complaints regarding the food.

• Health Committee - The Committee’s job is to keep the students of the university in good health. They provide first aid facilities in case of minor injuries and for emergencies; they make arrangements for the ambulance of the University to take the student to a nearby hospital to get required health care.

• Student Disciplinary Committee - The Committee seeks to set a standard of decorum that befits the University's name. The main aim of the committee is to function in a co-operative manner with the students and faculty alike. The members of this committee participate in disciplinary proceedings against students.

• Hostel Committee - The Hostel Committee has been consistently performing its duty in providing proper facilities and enquiring every concern related to the hostel. The committee looks into various affairs like cleanliness, discipline and everyday matters related to student’s hostel life.

• Literary and Cultural Committee - The committee’s role is not just limited to organising debates and preparing students for it, but also to develop their analytical skills and broaden their horizons in the attempt to see both sides of the issue in the course of the debate. All the members put forward their viewpoint regarding the latest developments in the society in the fields of law and also elsewhere. And they also discuss how these issues can form topics of debates, discussions, writing competitions etc.