A gazette notification of the Bengal government has been issued to reserve 30 per cent of the seats in the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS) for state students.

The Bengal Assembly had passed a bill in November last year that guaranteed 30 per cent of the seats in NUJS for students of the state.

Till the bill was tabled, reservation for students ”domiciled in West Bengal” was limited to 10 out of 125 seats. Now, 37 seats will be reserved for local candidates.

The notification of May 21, 2019, was issued after governor Keshari Nath Tripathi gave his assent, a source said.

“The university shall compulsorily make provision for the reservation of seats for the students domiciled in the state of West Bengal to the extent of at least thirty percent of the total intake in the university,” the notification read.

The notification also vests powers to determine tuition and other fees on the state government. These charges are currently decided by the university.

“The tuition fees in the university shall be such as may be determined by the state government,” the notification said.

NUJS registrar Sikha Sen said a copy of the notification had reached the campus on Tuesday but it was not clear till Wednesday whether the new reservation policy would be effective in the current 2019 –20 session that starts next month.

The executive council of the institute, which is its highest policy-making body, will take the decision on whether the 30 per cent reservation can be implemented from this year or not, the registrar said.

“A copy of the gazette notification has reached the university on Tuesday. But the executive council will decide whether the quota will be implemented this year,” Sen told Metro.

The executive council is slated to meet on June 29.

The authorities couldn’t be sure whether the 30 per cent quota for local students would take effect from this year or only from next year because Clat (Common Law Admission Test) results were declared four days before the issuing of the gazette notification and the process of allotments of seats are already in progress, the official said.

The increase in quota will raise the chances of candidates from Bengal making it to one of the top law schools of the country without being in the top percentile of performers in Clat.

The national law schools in Kochi, Bhopal, Lucknow, Cuttack, Mumbai and Bangalore have 25 to 50 per cent reservation for domiciled students.