69-70 was a very unusual year in the arena of higher education in Burdwan. Some students of higher education washaving some strong hold of ultra-leftist movement. Some of the emotionally charged followers of Late Charu Majumder had a political commitment especially among college students. I was in Burdwan Raj College. Our own Librarian, Shankar Babu, a very leading body builder of the State and running a club of young body-builders in Burdwan himself, was fatally knifed from the backwhile he was pushing off some so-called Naxal-minded students. Burdwan University was also in disturbance. One day I got a call from the Registrar, Dr. Satyen Chatterjee. I was asked to meet the officiating Vice Chancellor, Dr. Sashibhusan Chaudhury, an eminent historian of the time. Soon after I was called by the VC, Dr. Ramaranjan Mukherjee. After couple of meetings, I understood that I have tobe the instrument in establishing a Law Department of the University. More than three thousand applications were received against the personal initiative of the then VC to establish the new Law College to run professional LL.B. course, in 1970-71 itself. The model was of Calcutta University, evening classes and open to wider section of students of the University. I took the charge. Mr. Provash Roy, Mr. Modeswar Hossain from the profession, and Prof. Baidyanath Choudhury from Hooghly Mohosin College, also joined me, all as part-time faculty. Mr. Kartik Roy, Mr. Ganganarayan Mukherjee, Mr. Jyotirmay Mukherjee, Mr. Haridas Banerjee, Md. Yeasin from the Burdwan Bar and Dr. Pratap Chandra Chanda from Calcutta University also joined. Justice Pratap Roy, former Acting Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court, was a student of this batch of students. In 1971-72, Professor Moni Chandra joined as Departmental Professor and first Head of the Department, and took charge from me. But in all practical purposes, he allowed me to continue in the same manner as I used to do.
Early
in 1972, Mr. Harish Ghosh, Mr. Gopal Seth, and Prof. Baidhyanath Choudhury
joined the University with me as the University Lecturers. Unofficially, I
continued to carry on the job as I was carrying so far. On the direction of the
BCI, the University constituted a Legal Education Committee, the first one by
any university at the time, under the chairmanship of the Former Chief Justice
of Calcutta, one of the jurists of our time, Justice P.B.Mukherjee. Dr.
P.K.Tripathy of Delhi University, Dr. G.S.Sharma of ILI, Delhi, and Prof. Moni
Chanda were other members. I was the member-secretary of the committee. The
Committee recommended (a) establishment of a Law College with a full-time law
course, (b) admission of limited selected students from an admission test,
and (c) introducing 'Law' as a subject in the undergraduate course to make a fundamental
strong combination of Law, Political Science, and Economics for All India and
State public services. University accepted the recommendation and the Law
College in that form was established to run regular full time LL.B. course with
a mission of occupying a place of pride in the judiciary of the state. The
first batch of students of thirteen students passed out in 1976. One of the
first batch students, Shri Trilochan Singh, became an IAS officer; four of
them, Aninda, Malaymarut, Sib Sadhan, and Pradip, joined the judicial
service. Later, three of them were recommended to become high court judges.
Unfortunately, Aninda, one of the brightest judicial officers, was prevented by
a sudden attack of aneurysm in the brain and consequent paralytic attack. Thank
God, his life was saved! Thereafter, every year, the number of former students
from this University became high court judges. I took pride in the fact that at
one stage, in most of the districts of West Bengal, my students led the
judicial officers in each District as the District Judge. The initial objective
of the College in experimenting with the development of a cadre of judicial
officers has been a tremendous success. For more than a decade, the success
continued, and many of our alumni strengthened the judiciary in the High Court
of Calcutta. A number of them, present and former High Court Judges, are
present here. There are many alumni of this College who are now successful,
leading legal professionals in the High Court and District Courts. Some of them
are Ministers, MP and MLA. Some are holding responsible positions in various
corporate and banking concerns.
I left Burdwan University, temporarily in 1988 and finally in 1990 at the invitation of BCI to build up the first Law University of the country, National Law School of India University in Bangalore. Thereafter, I have had the opportunity to establish and lead some other national universities and judicial academies. But still, I feel Burdwan is my university. I am told that Justice Krishna Iyer recognized my feelings in giving his convocation address in Burdwan University a few years back, initially suggesting, "I came at this advanced age to attend this Convocation because it is Mitra's University!" This is my best certificate in life!
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