The New Indian Express ·
Split identity of the Bar Council of India
On the morning of August 13, the Bar Council of India (BCI) issued a six-page order directing every state bar council (SBC) to refuse enrolment to the entire 2026 graduating class of NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad. The provocation was an email in which outgoing students had asked their vice-chancellor to reconsider inviting the Chief Justice of India to their convocation. By evening, the order was initially watered down and then withdrawn. In a single day, the BCI asserted a power to jeopardise the futures of an entire graduating class, and then withdrew the order as though nothing had happened.
The rule of law is the first condition of a civil society, and the legal profession holds a special responsibility to defend it. It is therefore troubling when its statutory authority exercises power without observing the disciplines expected of a regulator. A regulator's stock-in-trade is natural justice. It hears affected persons, gives reasons for its decisions and does not practise collective punishment. If, by the BCI's own admission, the vast majority of the students were innocent, was the order designed to punish the innocent?
The order cited no statutory provision. Section 48B of the Advocates Act, 1961, which enables the BCI to issue directions to SBCs, is tied to its general supervision of their functions. Section 24 requires an SBC to enrol applicants who satisfy the prescribed conditions, while Section 24A specifies the statutory grounds of disqualification. Petitioning a V-C appears nowhere among them.