The Karnataka Assembly on Tuesday passed a bill, which reserves 50% seats in the National Law School of India University, Bengaluru for students from Karnataka, the Times of India reported.

The National Law School of India (Amendment) Bill, 2017 was passed unanimously after the Congress government acceded to the demands of BJP MLAs to increase quota for Karnataka students from 30% to 50%.

Higher education minister Basavaraj Rayareddy piloted the bill and said that the amended bill will ensure that students from Karnataka will benefit by gaining admission to reputed institutes.

“We are working to reserve 25% of seats for local students in IIT-Dharwad as well. Only eight out of 80 students from Karnataka managed to get admission in NLSIU last year and six at IIT, Dharwad. This is unfair considering that Karnataka has granted land worth over Rs 1,000 crore to set up IIT Dharwad,” Rayareddy said.

In order to determine the student’s residential status, the bill stipulates that the parents of the said student should have been residents of Karnataka for not less than 10 years prior to the year of the student’s qualifying examination, or the student should have studied in Karnataka for a period of seven years before the qualifying exam.

BJP members said that they were surprised the government had reserved only 30% of seats for locals and demanded it should be hiked to 50%.

They also asked the government to increase the number of years from five to seven to determine residential status of the students who have studied in any recognized institutions in the state for a period of seven years before the qualifying examinations, TOI reported.

After consulting with CM Siddaramaiah, Rayareddy agreed to the opposition's demand and the Bill was passed.