ILS Law College
Coordinates: 18°31′02″N 73°49′42″E / 18.517204°N 73.828393°E
Indian Law Society's Law College, commonly known as ILS Law College, is Government aided law school in Pune, India. It was established in 1924 and offers courses that include three-year and five-year degrees. ILS is located on Law College Road, Pune.
The college has for more than a decade been ranked within the Top Ten Law Colleges in the Indian subcontinent. It has been ranked by the AC Nielson-India Today Survey in the seventh position in 2014.[1] In 2000 it was ranked third. ILS has celebrated its 75th Foundation Day.
The college was aided by The Ford Foundation.
History
The Indian Law Society was established on 4 March 1923 as a Public Charitable Trust registered under the Societies Registration Act. The society established the eponymous Law College with the objective of providing facilities for the study of law on a scientific basis with proper training.
.The college was affiliated with the University of Bombay, but with the founding of the University of Pune in 1949, the college became a constituent of the latter.
Campus
The ILS campus is located at the centre of Law College Road between the FTII (Film and Television Institute) and the Bhandarkar Research Institute. The Sarswati Building houses the library, the reading room, the administrative office, the conference hall and the Principal's office, besides the chambers of other faculty members and computer facilities for research students. The Lakshmi Building has fifteen halls for regular lectures, the legal aid centre and an auditorium with a capacity of 400 people, used for guest lectures, college functions and presentations.
Apart from the academic and administrative buildings, the College facilities are further enriched with a huge residential complex for male students; the newly constructed Ladies Hostel, a gymnasium, a cricket and football ground, a sports pavilion housing the indoor sports facilities, tennis courts and a swimming pool to maintain physical health.
Housed on a floor of the Sarswati building, the ILS library includes over 45,000 books and volumes of periodicals, journals and magazines. It subscribes to over 95 Indian and foreign journals each year, including the All England Reports, The American Journal of Comparative Law, and The Cambridge and Oxford Law Journals. It offers computer and photocopying facilities to its students as well as an online search catalog. The library has an inter-library loan network with other libraries in Pune.
Education
The faculty divides its time among two activities - teaching and research.
International students
The institution has students from countries including Bhutan, Nepal, South Korea, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the USA, Switzerland, Kenya, Canada, Uganda, Sudan, Iran Kuwait and Bahrain.
Food facilities
The college has two food centres, one a canteen which serves many cuisines from starters to main courses, mainly vegetarian, and the other a mess which serves food cooked in a thali system. There are eateries nearby, including Poona Coffee Hut, Asings Burger, A Cafe Coffee Day, Barista Cafe, tea trails, Kollage, Wadeshwar, German Bakery, tapri, Pastry Corner, Zinger and Krishna Dining.
Placement Cell
The college has a Placement Cell which helps students to meet with potential employers, including law firms, banks and multinational companies.
Facilities
The college devotes attention to creating a Moot Court atmosphere; ILS has debating cells, cultural cells, a corporate cell, a center for public law, an alternate dispute resolution cell,Intellectual Property Rights Cell, International Law Cell, Hariyali cell etc.
The college has a legal aid programme involving final year students, and runs legal literacy programmes for lay people. For instance, in a project with the KEM Hospital research centre, a village is selected and students sent there to spread legal literacy. This project covers issues like human rights, gender and civil rights. Students also put on street plays to make citizens aware of legal issues.
In conjunction with the Rotary circuit, ILS students go to a legal centre four days a week. The centre gets clients through various NGOs active in Pune. The legal centre also has lawyers on hand to help people in need of counselling. However, the college advocates out-of-court settlements to lengthy litigation.
One of the institution's projects involves working with the National Commission for Women. The college is active in human rights projects which are handled by the student members Human Rights Cell of the college.
The institution has been a partner institute for Surana & Surana International Technology Law Moot Court Competition from 2002 to 2008.
An advantage of studying at ILS is that being a grant-in-aid college, the fees are affordable.
Courses
In addition to the five-year degree course and the three-year degree course (for graduates in any discipline), the college offers diplomas and distance-learning courses.
ILS is part of the EU Law Poros Programme, and students can apply for this diploma course. The best students from the programme get a chance to go on an exchange program to Greece for a semester of study there.
Notable alumni
- Gopinath Pandurang Munde: former deputy chief minister of State of Maharashtra from 1995 to 2000, former Union Minister of Rural Development, Panchayat Raj, Drinking Water and Sanitation, Government of India, New Delhi, in Narendra Modi cabinet.
- Yeshwant Vishnu Chandrachud former Chief Justice of India
- P. B. Gajendragadkar, 7th Chief Justice of India, serving from February 1964 to March 1966.
- Sushil Kumar Shinde, Home Minister.
- Vilasrao Deshmukh, two time chief minister of Maharashtra and a minister in the Monmohan Singh Cabinet,
- M. C. Chagla, former Cabinet Minister and Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court
- Mohan Dharia (b. 1925), Padma Vibhushan, former Union minister, social worker[2]
- Agatha Sangma, youngest minister of state in Indian cabinet.
- Muhammed Hamdulla Sayeed, youngest Congress MP in India elected from the Lakshadweep Constituency
- Panchi Bora, TV actress (Kayamath, Kahiin to Hoga, Saath Nibhaana Saathiya)