Center for Advanced Legal Studies and Research (CALSAR)
The specialist character of the Law Academy enabled it to assume a holistic view of legal education which would include not only doctrinal learning and acquisition of technical skills but also an active enquiry into the relation between law and society in the developmental milieu of the country and the role of law in activating the instruments of change in a traditional society in order to render justice to the weak and the oppressed. From this point of view, study of law has to be supplemented and supported by research and practice of law to be inspired by social commitment. The Law Academy, therefore took early steps to provide facilities for research and higher studies in law even as it was building up the law college for degree level studies. Within a period of seven years after the starting of the college, initiative was taken to establish the Center for Advanced Legal Studies and Research. The Center is sponsored by the Academy as an autonomous institution with nominees of Government and representative of the Govt. Law College and other social scientists in the Executive Committee.
The Center for Advanced Legal Studies and Research (CALSAR) is the research wing of the Academy. The Center is sponsored by the Academy. The Center is located in the heart of the city at Punnen Road, Statue, Near Government Secretariat with a state of the art research library, in the proximity of the Government Secretariat, State Legislature, State Public Library, the Kerala University Library, the Secretariat library, Legislative Library, the British Council Library and such other important institutions.
The Center for Advanced Legal Studies and Research was formally inaugurated by Shri. C. Achutha Menon, Chief Minister of Kerala, on 18th December, 1974. Dr. R.S. Krishnan, Vice-Chancellor, University of Kerala, presided. A large gathering of friends and well wishers of the Academy assembled to bless the birth of this new institution under the aegis of the Academy.
Academic Research and Projects
The Center (CALSAR) is an institution under the University of Kerala where, excellent facilities for research in law are available. It has been recognized as a research Center by the University. A number of Ph.Ds have been produced and a number of other candidates are doing work at the Center. Some of the Ph.Ds produced are the following
- Dr. N K Jayakumar, Vice Chancellor, NUALS.
- Dr. K C Sunny, Head, Department of law, Kerala University.
- Dr. Lalitha Sreenath, Professor, S V University, Ananthapur.
- Dr. Balashankaran, Professor, Madurai Kamaraj University.
- Dr. S Sivakumar, Professor, Indian Law Institute, New Delhi.
- Dr. R Ravikumar, Professor, Kerala Law Academy.
- Dr. Lekshmi Nair, Professor, Kerala Law Academy.
- Dr. Sanoj Rajan, International Committee for Red Cross, South Asia Region.
- Dr. Rajasekharan Nair, Principal, Government law College, Thiruvananthapuram.
- Dr. C Ramakrishnan, Senior Lecturer, Kerala Law Academy.
The activities of the Center are not to be confined to academic research alone. Many research projects on socio-legal problems were proposed to be undertaken by the Center, with financial assistance from the ICSSR, the U.G.C., UNESCO, ILO and such other agencies.
From its very inception, particular care was taken not to make the Center just another member in the family of research institutions in the country. It must be a research Center with a difference. Instead of encouraging legal research on the traditional lines, divorced from social realities and blind to the developments in other fields of knowledge, the Center was to make a bold beginning in a new direction. The problem taken up for research should be socially relevant, and the approach to those problems should be multi and inter-disciplinary. In all its functions the Center has social commitment – a realization that law is a dynamic instrument of social change.