Professor Rao has been the Vice Chancellor of NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad, since 2022. Prior to this, he served as Vice Chancellor of NLU Delhi for two years and of NLU Odisha for six years.
Professor Rao is a legal academic passionate about teaching, research, and advocacy in Criminal Law and Access to Justice. He earned his LLB and LLM from Kakatiya University in Warangal, M.Phil from the National Law School of India University in Bangalore, and PhD from the University of Delhi. He has the distinction of teaching with five prestigious law universities in India over the past three decades: National Law School, Bangalore (1990-95, 1997-98); NALSAR, Hyderabad (1998-2004, 2022 till date); Gujarat National Law University, Gandhinagar (2004-2007); NLU Odisha (2014-2020); and NLU Delhi (2020-2022).
Professor Rao is a Fulbright-Nehru Alumnus and was a Visiting Fellow at the University of Washington, Seattle, and the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London.
His main research areas are criminal law and criminal justice administration, where he has made substantial contributions to preventing custodial deaths. The Supreme Court of India adopted his ideas in the landmark D.K. Basu case in 1997. Professor Rao is Chairman of the ‘Committee for Reforms in Criminal Laws’ constituted by the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, in 2020. In 2020, Prof. Rao received the highest award in the field of criminology — the ‘ISC-Kumarappa-Reckless Award’ — for his outstanding contribution to criminal justice education in India, awarded by the Indian Society of Criminology (ISC).
Professor Rao is regularly invited as a speaker to several international platforms and share his expert perspectives. In February 2026, Prof Rao was invited to speak at a UNESCO-led session titled ‘Equipping the Judiciary to Harness the Power of AI’ as part of the India AI Impact Summit 2026.The session explored AI tools for Access to Justice, UNESCO Guidelines for the Use of AI in Courts and Tribunals, and capacity-building to equip judges with skills for ethical, human rights-respecting AI adoption. Tim Curtis, Director and Representative of UNESCO Regional Office for South Asia, highlighted Professor Rao’s distinguished leadership initiatives on integrating technology and legal education to strengthen judicial capacity, access to justice, and ethics in the administration of law.
Prof Rao shared his perspective on how judicial training programs should develop ethical AI skills across South Asian judiciaries and emphasised the importance of creating a law curriculum in the AI era by involving all stakeholders, including law firms and IT companies, to foster a technologically skilled legal community. (View Prof Rao’s speech: Empowering Courts with AI: Tools, Insights & Impact.)
On the invitation of Christopher H Stephens, Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Legal Vice Presidency, Prof Rao participated in the World Bank Group’s Law, Justice and Development Week (LJD) and the Inaugural Global Deans of Law Faculties Dialogue in November 2025, at the World Bank Group headquarters in Washington, D.C. Prof Rao offered his insights on how students and staff can play in expanding access to justice; building an inclusive pipeline of law and development professionals; and opportunities for collaboration to strengthen legal education and engagement worldwide.
Professor Rao was a member of the Indian delegation that presented the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on Human Rights at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva in November 2022. Based on the 152 recommendations accepted by India, the national report was prepared in accordance with the United Nations Human Rights Council’s decision and focused on the measures adopted, progress made, and challenges encountered in India’s movement toward realising human rights.
Professor Rao, along with Suman Dash Bhattamishra, compiled and prepared a report, ‘Access to Justice for Marginalised People and Socially Relevant Legal Education in India.’ This report stems from a three-year joint project between NLU Odisha and UNDP to implement an Access to Justice Initiative. The project increased awareness among students, lawyers, academicians, and community members about the issues faced by socially and economically disadvantaged groups. It also encouraged alternative dispute resolution methods and empowered individuals to assert their rights and entitlements.
A passionate advocate for clinical legal education, Professor Rao has consistently emphasised the urgent need for reform to enable the adoption of transformative pedagogy, making clinical legal education a tool for systemic change, thereby reducing the justice gap, improving ethical lawyering, and fostering community engagement. Socially relevant lawyers can be cultivated through strengthened clinical legal education. Read: ‘Why Not a Clinical Law School with Socially Relevant Legal Education?’ He was also a Member of the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) Committee in 2018, responsible for designing the curriculum for four mandatory clinical courses. The Land Rights Paralegal Programme of Andhra Pradesh state was an offshoot of his course on ‘Legal aid and Public Interest Litigation’ at NALSAR, Hyderabad, in 2003.