About Prof. (Dr.) G. S. Bajpai

Prof. (Dr.) G.S. Bajpai serves as the Vice Chancellor of National Law University Delhi. He is equipped with more than thirty years of professional experience as an author, researcher, teacher and administrator.

He has previously served as the Vice Chancellor at Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law (RGNUL), Punjab. Registrar, National Law University Delhi. He has also served as Professor of Criminology & Criminal Justice (Law); Chair Professor at K.L Arora Chair in Criminal Law; and Chairperson of the Centre for Criminology & Victimology at National Law University Delhi. Before that, he served as Professor (Law & Development) & Chairperson at the Centre for Criminal Justice Administration, National Law Institute University, Bhopal. He has also held positions at the Indian Institute of Public Administration (1989), Bureau of Police Research & Development (1989- 1995), Punjab Police Academy, Punjab and Department of Criminology & Forensic Science, University of Saugar, M.P. Under his guidance, as many as 12 students have already completed doctoral dissertations (Ph. D.). In addition to a Master’s specialisation in Criminology & Criminal Justice, he holds a doctorate in victimology and a post-doctorate in criminal justice from Leicester University, U.K., as a Commonwealth Fellow at the Department of Criminology, Leicester University, U.K.

The Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Govt. of India has nominated Prof. GS Bajpai as a Member of the Committee for conferring statutory status to the 'Right to Repair' under the statutory framework of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019. He has been nominated as a Member of the State Higher Education Council, Punjab by the Govt. of Punjab. He is the Convenor, the Committee for Reforms in Criminal Laws set up by the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, tasked with spearheading historic reforms in Criminal Laws in India. He is the Member of the Advisory Board for Development of Legal Education & Legal Profession of the Bar Council of India; a Member of the Standing Committee of the Legal Education Committee of the Bar Council of India; Member, General Council, Damodaram Sanjivayya National Law University, Visakhapatnam; Member, Punjab State Legal Services Authority and Member, State Legal Services Authority, U.T., Chandigarh. The Association of Indian Universities has nominated him as Member of the Board of Indian Association of Social Science Institutions (IASSI). Member of the Expert Committee of the UGC to frame guidelines for introducing the Course on Law for Holistic and Multidisciplinary Education. Prof. Bajpai has been designated a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata.

Prof. Bajpai has authored twenty one books/monographs; more than fifty papers; more than sixty op-eds in the leading dailies like Indian Express, the Hindu, the Tribune and thirteen project reports etc. His books (2011) 'Witness & Criminal Justice Systems', 'On Cyber Crime & Cyber Law', 'Situational Crime Prevention & Crime Reduction' and ‘Victimological Narratives on Gender Violence’ (2014), Victim Justice- A Paradigm Shift in the Indian Criminal Justice System" and "Judgments that Shaped the India Jurisprudence" published (2017) by Thomson & Reuters, 'Living on the Edge' and 'Juvenile Justice' (Bloomsbury (2019) have been well-received. His recent publication Fast Track Courts in India Promise & Performance published by Satyam Law International (2022) is an empirical evaluation of the functioning of Fast Track Courts in Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, west Bengal and Delhi.

He is the editor of two prestigious international journals: Journal of Victimology & Victim Justice (published by Sage Publications) and Indian Journal of Criminology, a publication of Indian Society of Criminology since 1972.

Amicus:

At the instance of the Hon’ble High Court of Delhi, he was appointed as Amicus Curiae for the following cases:

Babloo Chauhan Alias Dabloo v. State Govt. of NCT of Delhi, 30.11.2017 - Crl.A. 157/2013
Karan v. State NCT of Delhi, [2020] DLT 352
Sunil Tyagi v. State Govt. Of NCT of Delhi, CRL. MC. – 5328/2013 AND CRL. MA. 19244/2013

Notably, Prof. Bajpai is credited to have evolved the concept of 'wrongful prosecution' in the Indian context. Based on his report in the Babloo Chauhan case, the Law Commission in its 277^th Report proposed amendments to laws to help the victims of wrongful prosecution. His report in the case of Karan v. State also resulted in the introduction of the concept of a "Victim Impact Report" and the procedure for the calculation and grant of compensation under section 357 of the Cr.P.C. In the third case of Sunil Tyagi v. State, his report gave useful suggestions in the matter of proclaimed offenders, issuing of process and attachment of property.

Awards:

Prof. Bajpai has been conferred various awards and honours for consistent high quality research. He is the recipient of the G. B. Pant Award for his book on Human Rights and Police. In recognition of his contribution to the growth of Criminology in India, Dr Bajpai was conferred the title of Fellow of the Indian Society of Criminology (FISC) by the Indian Society of Criminology (ISC). He was also awarded (2005) the coveted Prof. S. Srivastava Memorial Award for excellence in research/teaching in Criminology and the ‘Best Social Scientist Award’ of the Indian Society of Criminology (2014). He was conferred the prestigious Prof. K. Chockalingam Award in the Fourth International & Eight Biennial Conference of the Indian Society of Victimology in October 2014. Prof. Bajpai was conferred upon the 'ISC-Kumarappa Reckless award', the highest honour and award of ISC, in recognition of significant contribution to research, teaching and administration in the field of Criminal Justice Administration (2018).

Lectures and Assignments:

Prof. Bajpai has held many prestigious international assignments for advanced research in criminal law and criminal justice. He has been to the University of Paris (France) under UGC Indo-French Cultural Exchange Programme (1999) to work on 'Victim's position in the French Criminal Justice System'. He was also the recipient of the prestigious Commonwealth Academic Staff Fellowship at the Department of Criminology, University of Leicester, the U.K. for advanced research and teaching (in Crime reduction) for the year 2003-04. Prof. Bajpai also visited International Victimology Institute, Tokiwa University, Japan for delivering lectures in July 2007. Additionally, he was also selected under the Indo-Russia Cultural Exchange programme to visit St. Petersburg (2007) and Indo-Hungarian Cultural Exchange Programme, Budapest (2009). In 2010, Prof. Bajpai was conferred a visiting fellowship of ICSSR under the Indo-NWO Exchange of Scholars, and under this visit, he carried out significant research at the International Victimology Institute, Faculty of Law, the University of Tilburg in the Netherlands. Apart from visiting the International Criminal Court at Hague, Prof Bajpai delivered key lectures at several universities like VU University, Amsterdam.

He was identified by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York to author a case study on 'Bhopal Gas Tragedy' which was published with the Cambridge Press, US. He made a key presentation at the Asian Law Institute Conferences held at the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur (June 2014), Manila (2017), Seoul (2018), New Delhi (2020) Asian Society of Criminology Conferences at Hong Kong (2018) and World Society of Victimology Conference (2019). He visited the Faculty of Law / Criminology at the University of Wurzburg, Germany in January 2015 as a visiting professor under the German Academic Exchange Programme.

As a part of the academic collaboration, he has made significant presentations at the Centre for Criminology, the University of Oxford and the Department of Criminology & Law, Sheffield Hallam University U.K. on the issues of Post-Delhi Gang-Rape Legal Reforms and Victim Justice.

Distinctions and Achievements:

Prof. Bajpai is the Secretary-General of the World Society of Victimology (WSV). He is the first Indian to be elected as Secretary-General of the WSV. He is also the Vice President of Victim Support Asia and President of Indian Society of Victimology and Vice-Chairman of Indian Society of Criminology. He has also been appointed as a Member of the ‘Standing Committee on Research Methodology for Research Projects’ of BPR&D.

As a passionate criminal law teacher for more than two decades, he is credited to have designed and pioneered the use of the expression - 'Critical Criminal Law ' in India which is now an LL.M. Course in many universities. Besides, he is also credited to have conceptualised the novel paradigms of "Victim Justice", "Victim Jurisprudence" and "Wrongful Prosecution" in the Indian context.

During his tenure as Registrar, NLU Delhi the University had ranked consistently at number 2 for the last three years, apart from scoring significantly well (3.57) in NAAC rating. The rise of NLU Delhi on the research side also happened during this period where he played a significant role.

As a very significant achievement, Prof. Bajpai worked as the 'Co-Principal Investigator' of the MHRD-UGC, E-PG Pathshala Project, and led the creation of online e-text and video lectures on 367 modules of fifteen papers for PG level courses in Law. He has also completed E-PG Pathshala Project on Criminology as Principal Investigator where he led the creation of 350 e-texts and a similar number of video lectures for twelve postgraduate level papers on the subject of criminology. He worked as Principal Investigator to lead the creation of Massive Open Online Course (MOOCs) for various subjects in law where thousands of learners have got benefitted from these courses. Prof. Bajpai also contributed significantly to police training research. He successfully implemented a series of Vertical Interaction Courses for IPS officers and also coordinated training projects with Sheffield Hallam University.

Areas of Interest:

Victim Justice

Critical Criminal Law

Criminal Procedure

Empirical Legal Research

Legal Theory