Bar Council can’t discipline law students before enrolment: Supreme Court

“So far as students are concerned, it is their parent institution or the authority prescribed under the regulations/bye laws of such institution who alone are competent to take disciplinary action,” said the bench, also comprising Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana.

The bench made the observation while declaring that all communications issued by the BCI on August 13, following opposition by a group of NALSAR University of Law students to inviting Chief Justice of India Surya Kant to the university’s annual convocation, were “without any authority of law”.

BCI chairman Manan Kumar Mishra had issued the directive on August 13, asking state Bar councils not to enrol students of NALSAR’s 2026 batch who took the stand against the CJI attending the event. It was withdrawn hours later, with the explanation that BCI had closed the proceedings after concluding that the students had “no role in any disturbance or movement”.

Hearing a plea challenging the withdrawn directive on August 14, CJI Kant expressed his displeasure over BCI’s actions.

‘They must be held accountable’

On Thursday, Senior Advocate K Parameshwar, who appeared for the two former NALSAR students, said the matter involved a question of freedom of speech and expression in a university. “It is not about just one student. It is about banning freedom of speech and expression across an entire university,” he said.

“We want to know under what circumstances those orders were passed, whether meetings were held. After all, it’s a statutory authority responsible for legal education and for regulating the legal profession,” Parameshwar said.

He added that an earlier judgement of the top court covers whether the BCI has jurisdiction, prior to enrolment, to regulate student conduct or academic freedom within a law school. “We would like to know under what provision of law this was done. After all, they must be held accountable in some fashion,” the senior counsel said.

CJI Kant said one cannot expect everyone to act responsibly. “We have no doubt about it that the very fact that it was withdrawn means that there must be some realisation that a mistake, if not a blunder, was committed that has been rectified”.

The CJI agreed with Parameshwar’s remarks on BCI’s jurisdiction. “Mr Parameswar appears to be right. That as far as the conduct of the law students is concerned, BCI has no jurisdiction or statutory. That’s an exclusive domain of the educational institution. There cannot be any dispute on that.”

‘Legal position needs to be clarified’

BCI’s Mishra said “everything has been closed” and asked, “should everything…be adjudicated?” He submitted that the “matter should be given a quietus.”

To which Justice Bagchi said the legal position needs to be clarified lest a similar situation arise in the future.

“Let us say a student indulges in an act of moral turpitude and is disqualified as per the Advocates Act, 1961, to enrol. But the university permits him to pursue his education. You can definitely, at the time of enrolment, examine the conditions precedent for enrolment, but to put an injunction that I will not enrol you…it is getting beyond.”

“That is why it was never implemented and was withdrawn the same night,” Mishra said.

Justice Bagchi said the question is “whether BCI can exercise control over student behaviour before the student actually attains the qualification to become an advocate”. “You can always stop him when he makes an application. That’s a different thing,” Justice Bagchi said.

The bench then held that the BCI directives were “bad in law”.