All Final Year LLB Students Eligibile To Appear For AIBE, Supreme Court Orders Bar Council of India

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday ordered that all final-year law students are eligible to appear in the All-India Bar Examination (AIBE) 2024 scheduled to be held on November 24. The bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud heard a petition challenging the decision of the Bar Council of India to refrain final-year law students from applying for AIBE, an exam held to award licenses to law graduates for practising in Indian courts. The court then passed the interim order providing a major relief to the LLB students across the country. 

9 LLB students at Campus Law Centre and Law centre-1, Faculty of Law, University of Delhi who filed the petition, argued that this prohibition on final year law students from appearing for the AIBE was contrary to the dictum of the Constitution bench of the Supreme Court in Bar Council of India vs. Bonnie Foi Law College.

During the hearing, BCI submitted that they needed time to frame rules regarding final year law students, to which, the bench said that they could take time to frame rules but ensure that the final-year law students do not lose a year. 

"We direct that the BCI shall permit the registration of all students who fall within the ambit of Paragraph 38 of the Bonnie Foi Decision. The above direction to operate in rem for AIBE scheduled for November 24," the bench observed in the order.

In the Bonnie Foi Law College decision, the Constitution Bench observed, “We are inclined to accept the suggestion from the learned Amicus that students who have cleared all examinations to be eligible to pursue the final semester of the final year course of law, on the production of proof of the same, could be allowed to take the All India Bar Examination. The result of the All India Bar Examination would be subject to the person passing all the components required under the course of study of the University/College. This would be subject to the All India Bar Examination results being valid for a specified period of time.”

"This judgment was delivered in February 2023, what was the BCI doing!", CJI asked the BCI counsel in response.