N. R. Madhava Menon | |
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 Menon in August 2007 | |
| Born | (1935-05-04)4 May 1935 |
| Died | May 8, 2019(2019-05-08) (aged 84) Thiruvananthapuram,Kerala, India |
| Alma mater | University of Kerala (BSc, LLB) Aligarh Muslim University (PhD) Panjab University (MA) |
| Occupation(s) | Legal educator, lawyer |
| Years active | 1956–2019 |
| Known for | Founding theNational Law School of India University and theWest Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences |
| Spouse | Rema Devi |
| Children | Ramakrishna Menon |
| Parent(s) | Ramakrishna Menon (Father) Bhavani Amma (Mother) |
| Awards | Padma Shri (2003) Padma Bhushan (2020) Living Legend of Law Plaque of Honour Rotary Club Award for Vocational Excellence |
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Neelakanta Ramakrishna Madhava Menon (4 May 1935 – 8 May 2019) was an Indian civil servant, lawyer and legal educator, considered by many as the father of modern legal education in India.[1] He is the founder ofNational Law Universities system and first director of theNational Law School of India University (NLSIU) and theNational Judicial Academy,Bhopal and the founder-vice-chancellor of theWest Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS).[2][3][4] He has also served as Chairman ofIndian Statistical Institute from 2002 to 2003.
Menon was awarded thePadma Shri in 2003[5] andPadma Bhushan in 2020 by theGovernment of India.
He was a member of theLaw Commission of India and also member of several expert Committees including on Legal Aid (1973), Civil Services Examination Reform (2000-2001), and Criminal Justice Reform (2002-2003), Police Act Drafting Committee (2005-2006) and the Committee on Draft National Policy on Criminal Justice (2006-2007) and Committee on Restructuring of Higher Education in India appointed by the Government of India. He was aCentral Secretariat Serviceofficer. The new academic block of NLSIU is named after him.[6]
Menon was born on 4 May 1935 atTrivandrum,Kerala in a middle-classNair family to Bhavani Amma and Ramakrishna Menon as the fourth of their six children.[2] His father, a law graduate and a revenue officer working for the Travancore Corporation, died due to typhoid, when Menon was two years old and he was brought up by his mother, with the assistance of her brothers and sisters. His mother took up a job as a clerk at Travancore Corporation to bring up Appu, as he was known at home,[7] and his three elder sisters and one younger brother; another one of his younger brothers died in childhood.[2]
Menon schooling was atSreemoolavilasam Government High School, Thiruvananthapuram from where he passed matriculation in 1949 and completed the pre-university course in 1950, when the erstwhile two-year course was realigned as a truncated one-year course. His graduate studies were atS. D. College,Alappuzha from where he passed with aBSc inzoology in 1953.[8] He also passed theHindi Visharad course conducted by theDakshin Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha simultaneously with his graduate studies.[2] He continued his studies atGovernment Law College, Ernakulam, but shifted toGovernment Law College, Thiruvananthapuram when the college was restarted in the capital city in 1953 and was the student editor of the college magazine in 1954–55. He passed the law course (BL) in 1955.[2][8]
Menon died on 8 May 2019, four days after his 84th birthday, atThiruvananthapuram,[9][10] reportedly after battlingliver cancer.[11]
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Menon started his career in 1955, as an apprentice to a locally known lawyer, V. Nagappan Nair, and assisted him for thirteen months. The next year, in 1956, he registered at theHigh Court of Kerala, in Ernakulam, as a lawyer and started practice under advocate Poovanpallil Neelakandan Pillai at the district court in Thiruvananthapuram. One year later, Menon appeared for theCivil Services Examination and got placed into theCentral Secretariat Service in New Delhi. On the advice of his teacher and mentor,A.T. Markose, the first director of theIndian Law Institute and the author ofJudicial Control of Administrative Action in India,[12] he took up the job at Central Secretariat in New Delhi.[2]
While working at the secretariat, Menon continued his studies at Campus College located atGole Market, affiliated toPunjab University and secured a post graduate degree (MA) in political science with distinction, in 1960. Afterwards, Menon joinedFaculty of Law, Aligarh Muslim University for further studies in law and passed the master's degree in law (LLM) and, obtaining aUGC scholarship, continued research on the topic,White Collar Crime. Teaching and doing part-time job as the warden of theSir Syed Hall at the university, he completed his research to obtain PhD in 1965, relocated to Delhi, and married Rema Devi, the same year.[2] He is the first PhD ofFaculty of Law, Aligarh Muslim University.[13] He was also the first non- Muslim to be appointed warden of a hostel at Aligarh Muslim University.[13]
In 1968, Menon joined his alma mater,Faculty of Law, Aligarh Muslim University, as a professor. The subsequent move was again toUniversity of Delhi as areader in the faculty of law, and later as the professor of the department. During his stint there, he received aFulbright Scholarship from theAmerican Council of Learned Societies and had the opportunity to present a paper on "Legal Aid" atBerkeley, California. He was a member of the Delhi University panel which liaised with universities from the United States such asHarvard,Columbia,Michigan andYale. It was during this period that Menon published his first book,Law Relating to Government Control Over Private Enterprise, co-authored by his colleague, G. Narasimhaswamy, published through Eastern Law Book Company.[14] Soon, his second book,Law and Property was published by N. M. Tripathy Co.[15] He also published an article, co-authored by Clarke Cunningham in theMichigan Law Review.[2]
Menon, while working in Delhi, is known to have organized the annual conference of the All India Law Teachers Association, in 1972, where he was elected as the Secretary General of the association. He has served as a member of the Committee for Implementing Legal Aid Schemes (CILAS), which was formed under the chairmanship ofV. R. Krishna Iyer, by theIndira Gandhi government, in connection with theGaribi Hatao programme.[2] He has also served as the secretary of theBar Council of India Trust. During an interlude, he worked as the principal of the Government Law College, Pondicherry.[3] When the Bar Council of India decided to establish a newlaw school in early 1980s, Menon's services were sought and he is known to have set up the Bangalore-basedNational Law School of India University (NLSIU) with aUS$150,000 government grant.[3] The school was the first in India to use theHarvard Law School'scase study method, which later became the mainstream form oflegal education in India. Menon worked at NLSIU for twelve years as the director, moving after the institution gained university status.[3]
In 1998, Menon was invited by theGovernment of West Bengal to set up theWest Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS) on the lines of the Bangalore initiative. As the firstvice-chancellor, he is known to have developed its infrastructure and educational curriculum and held the post till 2003, when theSupreme Court of India asked him to take over the responsibility as the first director of the newly formedNational Judicial Academy a training centre for judges[3] where he worked till his retirement in 2006.[8]
After retiring from active government service in 2006, Menon was appointed by theUnion Government as a member of the Commission on Centre-State Relations,[16] a position he held till 2010.[8] He also served as the Chairman of theIndian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, and later, as the Chairman of theCentre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram. He headed the central government committee constituted to draft the National Policy on Criminal Justice and served as the Commission on Equal Opportunity.[8] He was a member ofLaw Commission of India and was a member of the Committee on Restructuring of Higher Education in India as well as the Criminal Justice Reform committee.[8] Later, Madhava Menon headed a Commission constituted as per aSupreme Court order of April 2014 to submit recommendations on government advertisements, on which report was submitted in October 2014.[17]
Menon was a member of the Board of Governors of the International Organization of Judicial Trainers (IOJT),[18] was an advisor to theCommonwealth Judicial Education Institute, Canada.[8] He held the chair of the International Bar Association on Continuing Legal Education based at NLSIU and Menon Institute of Legal Advocacy Training (MILAT),[19] a non governmental organization founded by him in Thiruvananthapuram.[8] He was the Chancellor of theGuru Ghasidas University,Bilaspur,India[20] and a member of theCentre for Development Studies,Nirma University, Ahmedabad, Dr. Ambedkar University of Social Sciences, Delhi,NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad,National Law University, Jodhpur,National Law University Odisha[8] and the School of Law,Indira Gandhi National Open University.[16]
Menon lived in Thiruvananthapuram with his wife, Rema Devi. The couple had a son, Ramakrishna, an engineer based in Bengaluru.[21]
Menon, the president of theBar Council of India during the period, 1994–98, was conferred theLiving Legend of Law Award by theInternational Bar Association in 1994.[2][3][21] He was also a recipient of the Rotary Club Award for Vocational Excellence and thePlaque of Honour from theBar Council of India.[2][3][21] He received the degree ofDoctor of Law (Honoris Causa) from theNational Law School of India University in 2001.[3][21] He was a Fellow of theAmerican Council of Learned Societies andColumbia University.[2] TheGovernment of India included Menon, in 2003, in theRepublic Day honours list, for the civilian award ofPadma Shri.[5] He was posthumously awarded Padma Bhushan in 2020 for his contribution in the field of Public Affairs.[5]
Menon's contributions are known behind the establishment of two law schools in India viz.National Law School of India University, Bengaluru,[22] and theWest Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata.[21] He is credited with the conceptualisation of the five-year integrated LLB course, in place of the earlier three-year non-integrated course.[4][21] His Socratic method of teaching, involving participation of law students in legal clinics, is considered by many as an innovation.[2] Menon Institute of Legal Advocacy Training (MILAT), anon-governmental organisation founded by him, is involved in promoting human rights values and judicial reforms and conducting advance training programs for lawyers.[21]
NLSIU created N R Madhava Menon Doctoral Scholarship in 2020.[23]
Menon is the author of several books, research papers and journals. A complete list of papers, books and journals authored by him is given below.
Menon wrote his autobiography,The Story of a Law Teacher: Turning Point,[2] besides publishing several books, articles andmonographs on a variety of legal subjects.[21][27] His notable works include:
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)| Academic offices | ||
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| Preceded by | Chairman of Indian Statistical Institute 2002 to 2003 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | 1stVice Chancellor of National Law School of India University | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Vice Chancellor of West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | 1stDirector of National Judicial Academy | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Chancellor of Guru Ghasidas Vishwavidyalaya | Succeeded by |
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