Dimapur, April 20 (MExN): The National People's Youth Front (NPYF), Dimapur District, on Monday condemned what it called six decades of sustained political neglect over the continued absence of a fully functional, adequately funded, standalone Government Law College in Nagaland.
NPYF Dimapur District President, Zato Sumi in a statement, said more than 60 years after Nagaland attained statehood in 1963, the state remains without a single government-run law college of sufficient capacity and infrastructure.
“Responsibility is cumulative and undeniable,” the NPYF said, noting that the failure persisted across successive governments, including the Naga People's Front and the present coalition involving the Bharatiya Janata Party.
The youth body said that despite the state legislature passing annual budgets running into thousands of crores, there has been “no transparent, time-bound policy commitment, no dedicated institutional framework, and no visible capital investment plan” for a Government Law College. “This is not a question of financial incapacity, it is a clear demonstration of misplaced priorities,” it stated.
The NPYF said that while other sectors witnessed expansion through new directorates, administrative overheads and political appointments, the foundational requirement of legal education had been “systematically ignored.”
The front further stated that legal education within the state currently survives only in “limited and inconsistent forms” under Nagaland University and affiliated institutions, without the scale, funding, or institutional autonomy required for adequate legal training.
Asserting that this failure has produced structural inequality, the NPYF said students, particularly from economically weaker backgrounds, are forced to migrate outside the state for legal education, imposing “disproportionate financial and social burdens.”
The organisation also invoked Supreme Court precedents, citing judgments in Mohini Jain v. State of Karnataka and Unni Krishnan v. State of Andhra Pradesh, which affirmed the State's constitutional obligation to progressively expand access to education under Article 21 of the Constitution.
The NPYF said that in Nagaland's unique constitutional context, with protections under Article 371A, the absence of locally trained legal professionals capable of navigating both customary laws and constitutional frameworks amounted to a “strategic institutional failure.”
Dismissing recurring justifications of fiscal constraints, the NPYF said, “A government that consistently allocates substantial resources toward administrative expansion cannot claim incapacity when it comes to establishing a single critical institution that underpins justice delivery, governance, and rights awareness.”
The NPYF demanded that the establishment of a Government Law College in Nagaland be placed within a defined, time-bound framework, warning that the youth of Nagaland “will no longer tolerate continued neglect and empty political assurances.”
