At 18, they give coffee shops or movies a miss and go straight home after class. Because every penny counts when 100 letters to Chief Ministers, chief justices and the Law Commission are waiting to be written. That’s when they are not filing or arguing public interest litigations (PIL) at the Bombay High Court to make sure the law takes its own course.

Five law students from Jharkhand, Bihar, UP, Dalhousie and Jammu sharing one PC and a rented home office on Karve Road, have made a case for enforcing State helmet rules, safe train travel for women to checking gambling on the Net and they’re not stopping after three PILs.

Officiating principal Symbiosis Law College, M S Raste, told The Indian Express “filing and arguing PILs is not a part of curriculum or grading. The students spend every free minute after class on research and bear the expenses of filing PILs from their pockets.”

Raste says his students don’t want to stop here, but go ahead with PILs for environment safe guards for Pune, banning the plying of old vehicles, the fundamental right to primary education or under trials in country prisons.”

“We have spent more than Rs 15,000 so far, with over 10 trips to Mumbai to argue our petitions. We skip fun like movies, because drafting a PIL takes up more than eight hours a day,” says second-year student Vishal Kumar. He still recalls five days at a stretch when they did not step out of the flat to pore over a PIL calling for strict safety standards in women train compartments.

With close to 100 letters posted to 12 CMs on the absence of state human rights commissions, to the Law Commission and Arun Jaitley on loopholes in cyber laws and IT Act or what have-you, student Sangeet Pandey says he “will keep writing even if the letters fetch no response. We want to be lawyers and judges. This is good experience.”

Sangeet is waiting for his PIL filed to regulate Internet gambling opportunities to have its say in court on October 3. the respondents are VSNL, State of Maharashtra and Union of India.

Sangeet contends that gambling is an offence under the Public Gambling Act 1867 and Bombay Prevention of Gambling Act 1887, but by “making gambling accessible to all, you encourage people regardless of age and financial background, to risk their hard-earned money with an intangible entity, the Internet.”

At the Asian School of Cyber Laws, faculty and “team leader” Ravi Bharadwaj says he is “disappointed because a Mumbai law student filed a PIL on internet pornography, before he could. But now we’re working day and night to take matters to Supreme Court.” All to let the law prevail.