No bar exam now,grads to take it later,says BCI

Bar Council of India (BCI) is learnt to have decided to postpone the All India Bar Exam (AIBE).

In a major relief for about 33,000 law graduates,including 8,000-odd who will pass out by March 2011,the Bar Council of India (BCI) is learnt to have decided to postpone the All India Bar Exam (AIBE) from December 5 to March 5 next year.

It is learnt that at a meeting held early this week,the BCI executive decided to allow new lawyers those who have already received their licences from the state Bar Councils in the past six months as well as students,who will graduate by March 2011,to begin practice in court.

But sources in the BCI said holding the exam even in March 2011 was subject to many ifs and buts. There is no certainty, said a BCI functionary.

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However,there is a rider: Each of these 33,000 new lawyers will have to give an undertaking to the BCI that when the AIBE is held,they will sit for the exam and clear it. Those failing the exam will have to stop practising and sit in the next exam.

When asked,BCI chairperson Gopal Subramanium confirmed the decision,saying the BCI decided to postpone the exam in view of the representations received from various student organisations as well as demands by many state bar councils for greater role in the proposed exam.

Ever since the BCI took the decision to hold the AIBE first reported by The Indian Express there have been protests and a number of court cases challenging the legality of the exam. Even the Union Law Ministry has received many representations against the exam.

Recently,the National Delegation of Law Students had said new lawyers would start practice in courts without writing the pre-requisite exam.

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Representatives of various state Bar Councils have also spoken out against the BCI decision to make it mandatory for law graduates,intending to begin practice,to clear the AIBE before being allowed to don the black coat.

Chairpersons of some state Bar Councils had also told the BCI that they would not implement the decision in its present shape. They had also pointed to the fact that under the Advocates Act,the state Bar Councils have power of enrolment and not the BCI.

Asked if there was any possibility that the BCI could junk the proposal for holding the exam,Subramanium,who is also the Solicitor General of India,replied in the negative.

Nobody is opposed to the exam. There are only some outstanding issues,which we will resolve. Even the students want the exam, he said.

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However,former secretary of Bar Council of Punjab and Haryana Lekh Raj Sharrma,who has been a leading anti-exam voice,said the state Bar Councils were still opposed to the exam. How can the BCI take over a job that is being done by the state Bar Councils? We hope the BCI will settle all issues before deciding on the next course of action, Sharma said.