The National Institutional Ranking Framework, an institution under the Ministry of Human Resource Development, recently released its rankings for the year 2020. The rankings released include 10 categories which cover Law, Engineering, Management, Medical and Pharmacy amongst others. The rankings for law schools included predictable performances by some NLUs and unexpected rankings for others.
The top three spots have been consistent for the past three years. National Law School of India University (NLSIU) is leading the bunch, closely followed by National Law University Delhi (NLU Delhi) and National Academy of Legal Studies and Research Hyderabad (NALSAR) at second and third places respectively. NLSIU has taken the game at the indicator of Perception, with the full score of 100. The second place for perception is taken by NALSAR with a score of 70.96, which gives NLSIU an edge of about 30 points. NLU Delhi remains the only law school to score over 90 in Teaching, Learning and Resources.
Fourth place is taken by IIT Kharagpur, which also offers a law course, beating other NLUs by managing a remarkable score of 73.74 in Research and Professional Practice indicator. One of the notable changes in the rankings includes National Law University Jodhpur (NLUJ) taking over West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS) for the fifth spot.
Interestingly, National Law Institute University Bhopal (NLIU) has seen the most significant decline in its rankings. NLIU had been ranked 11 in the year 2019. This rank has now dropped to 17, with the NLU performing considerably poor on the Perception indicator with a score of 39.07.
It is also crucial to note that several law schools of considerable prominence such as Hidayatullah National Law University Raipur, National University of Advanced Legal Studies Kochi, Maharashtra National Law University Mumbai, etc. did not participate in the ranking process.