National Law University, Delhi was established in 2008 by Act No. 1 of 2008 of NCT Delhi in the National Capital Territory of Delhi with the initiative of the High Court of Delhi under the leadership of Ranbir Singh, the founder-director and vice-chancellor of the Nalsar University of Law, Hyderabad), who became the university's vice-chancellor. It was inaugurated by then President of India, Pratibha Patil. The college started functioning in 2008 from temporary buildings. By 2010, the college had completed its construction and was fully functional.
Academics
Undergraduate
NLUD offers a five-year undergraduate, B.A., LL.B. program. Seventy seats are offered and ten additional seats are allocated to foreign nationals. The undergraduate program is based on a credits system with additional seminar courses for further learning, pursuant according to the interests of the students. The program consists of approximately fifty subjects to be studied over the duration of ten semesters, with five subjects in each semester. Students are expected to submit fifty research projects before their graduation. The curriculum remains intensive and has led to concerns being brought about stress levels amongst the students. NLUD does not utilise the Common Law Admission Test like other National Law Universities do; admissions to the undergraduate B.A., LL.B. program are done through the All India Law Entrance Test, a test conducted every year by the university.
Postgraduate
NLUD also offers a one-year LL.M. program. The admission is through a written test which is conducted by the University followed by an interview. It additionally offers Postgraduate Diploma program in Urban Environmental Management, Judging and Court Management, and IPR and Patent Law along with Doctor of Philosophy.
The library is named after T. P. S. Chawla, a former judge of the High Court of Delhi who contributed significantly to the development of the library by donating his personal collection of rare volumes to it. The library is fully automated, and book circulation is maintained through electronic Library-cum-Identity Cards with the help of a bar code system. The collection comprises over 41,000 documents, including monographs, commentaries, textbooks, reference books and loose leaf material on various subjects, such as Jurisprudence, Judicial Process, Constitutional law, Intellectual Property, Public International Law, Environmental Law, Alternative Dispute Resolution, Aviation Law, Human Rights, Criminal Law, Cyber Laws, International Business Transactions, and Maritime Law. The library consists of three storeys.
Centre for Transparency and Accountability in Governance
Centre for Transnational Commercial Law
NLUD also possesses endowed chairs:
K.L. Arora Chair in Criminal Law
Justice B.R. Sawhny Chair in Professional Ethics
Kairos
Kairos was the literary and cultural fest of the University. It included a variety of events, which are legal as well as cultural. Each night featured performances by popular stage artists and musicians, which have included The Raghu Dixit Project, Faridkot, Dualist Inquiry, Dhruv Visvanathan, The UrbanEarlymen, and the Family Cheese.