Allegations have been raised against a post was published on 12th May 2017 in the Ahmedabad Mirror claiming that the University had misrepresented placement data. 
On 15th May 2017, an anonymous article was published in the Libertatem Magazine accusing ILNU and Ahmedabad Mirror of misrepresenting placement data. Following the same, the Ahmedabad Mirror, on 17th May, covered the story alleging misrepresentation of data by ILNU. The major contention of the Author’s of both the aforementioned articles, the replies provided by the University Management and the results of a little digging by Arguendo are provided below;

Allegation 1: The student of ILNU who had received the 16L offer, had not done so through the College Placement Cell but had received a PPO through their own efforts. 
Clarification issued by the University: 

Institute had shared the interim report of graduating students and their placement wherein it was mentioned that one of our students got an offer through PPO of approximately around 16 lakh. which was shared by the student himself to the institute. This PPO he has earned through the rigorous internship at the firm that we all know. the report of the institute had nowhere mentioned that he has got this offer through CRC (Campus Recruitment Committee consists of students and faculty incharge) by bringing the law firm at the campus. it was never intended to misguide or misrepresent the fact the only intention was to feel proud of our student and share that pride.

Arguendo’s Analysis: 

Picture 1 is the actual Press Note supplied by the University to Ahmedabad Mirror, which has been provided to us by the University. 




Picture 2 is the version published by Ahmedabad Mirror (accessible here.)



We have highlighted the disputed part to make it clear that as per the interim report which was released by NIRMA University, the University had never claimed that the got his offer from the College. The interim note states that;

“The highest package offered was around Rs 16 lakh per annum and the average package comes to around Rs5.25 lakh, offered by top domestic law firms and corporates among others. Overall, the feeling is that all the recruiters who have visited the campus or who have opted off campus placement drives, were extremely happy with the quality and skills of the students of ILNU….”

What is even more blatantly obvious is that Ahmedabad Mirror choose to edit and change the verbatim of the Press Note and published something which was not only ambiguous but also started this entire fiasco in the first place.
Essentially every single accusation being leveled towards NIRMA University in this instance stems from the fact that the Editor of Ahamabad Mirror apprently left out some words in the middle of the sentence.
[We have reached out to AM but have got no response till the time of publishing this]

Allegation 2: That the student in question himself was unaware of his package and hence Nirma University announcing that the student had received a package of 16L was misleading.
Clarification issued by the University: 
According to the Ahmedabad Mirror itself, the placement coordinator for Nirma has already clarified this stating, “No law firm provides written details about pay package. Students are informed verbally about it at a later stage. We calculate the average package based on information provided to students and through figures available about the pay packages from the market.”
Arguendo’s Analysis: The author of the articles in both Ahmedabad Mirror and Libertatem Magazine fail to take into account that Law firms have standard fixed packages in general. As per available data published in Legally India, the last mass hike in salaries across top law firms was in the year 2015 and from 2016 salaries ranged in tightly fixed stable brackets.  Essentially if you make it into a top law firm, it can reasonably be guessed as to what will be the pay package offered to you.
Other places which give an overview of previous years salaries offers are here, here, here and here.

Again, at no place has the management of NIRMA University even remotely misrepresented on any aspect but merely drawn an inference from available data.

Subsequently, on the 18th of May 2017, Ahmedabad Mirror went ahead and covered a story stating that Nima was apparently threatening its students with defamation and restricting them from speaking against the college.  

Arguendo got in touch with the Director of Institute of Law, Nirma University, who was kind enough to forward to us the email in question, which was sent to students after the first articles were published. 
It is being reproduced below with their permission;
“
Dear ILNUits 

I came to know recently about some very shocking state of affairs. Some of our students indulging and trying to defame the institute where they studying.  If any students has got any issue any query can directly write to administration but engaging yourself in an activity which belittle the institute is not tolerated. It’s ultimately damaging the future prospects of you all existing students. 

The first and fundamental lesson of law education is not to be judgmental if you do not have facts in your hand. Get your facts corrected before you opine and defame your institute on social media. Approach an appropriate authority to present your grievances/issues/comment if any. The difference between law man and layman lies here. It’s very easy to belittle an image of an individual or an institute making of which might have taken huge sacrifices and sheer hardwork of many people. 

I make a sincere appeal to all of you to take care of this and refrain from any activity which ultimately harms the students’ future prospects.”

Arguendo’s Analysis:  We leave the readers to judge this for themselves. But we clearly fail to see how websites like Lawctopus, Legally India and any other websites which may have alleged the same, reach the conclusion that the students of the University were “threatened with defamation” or their “freedom of speech were curtailed“.
It seems evident that the Management, in the email shared above, only pointed out that if there were any grievances, there were proper channels of redressal for the same. Spoiling the name of the institution would only damage current students. The established process of grievance redressal is in all Universities and it would be quite a stretch to think that requesting that students respect the process cannot be a threat as such. 

It is also interesting to note that Lawctopus, Legally India, and Ahmedabad Mirror cited and shared an email sent by an ex-student, who had raised multiple allegations against the University. However surprising all the three previously mentioned websites fail to do however is share the reply by the University which clarified and rebutted all the allegations of the ex-student.
{Arguendo has been provided with a copy of the email thread but would not be sharing/publishing private emails without the express permission of the University.}


[We would like to thank Prof. (Dr.) Purvi Pokhariyal, Director & Dean, Institute of Law, Nirma University, Ahmedabad, Gujarat for sparing some time from her schedule to revert to our queries and providing us all clarifications with respect to this.]


 [In case there are any current students of Institute of Law, Nirma University who would either want to challenge this version of the events or issue a state in support of the same please do write to us at fsa712@gmail.com.]


 Note From Our Editor: No University is perfect. There were allegations of nepotism, corruption, and mismanagement even in Universities such as NUJS, NUSRL, and NLSIU among some. As Law students and future lawyers of this Country, it is the duty of ever student to raise a voice whenever they see something wrong happen. But such voice should not be raised merely for the sake of hearing loud voices. As Law students, we have the greater responsibility to verify everything we say or post. Unverified allegations without proof are not something we as Law students should be buying into. No University is perfect. But something close to perfection can be achieved once students and management work together in tandem. 

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