The Bar Council of India (BCI) has extended the deadline for registering for the 10th All India Bar Exam (AIBE) to be held on 26 March by a week, apparently after requests from candidates and state bar councils.

A somewhat cryptic notice today on the official AIBE site stated:

"As per the request of candidates and the State Bar Councils,the Date Schedule for AIBE-X has been re-scheduled. Kindly download the re-scheduled Date Sheet.”

While it’s not immediately clear what has changed, it appears that the PDF at the “Important Dates (AIBE-X)” link has been updated with a new document.

When comparing that document with one available on Google’s caches, it emerged that the original deadline for beginning the process of applying online was previously 26 February 2017 but has today been pushed to 5 March 2017, with the last date for paying the challan now being 6 March, and online or offline application forms needing to be in by 9 March.

Admit cards are scheduled to e released only 6 days later, on 15 March.

Also at the bottom of the new timetable, it states in bold:

Council reserves the right to extend the said examination date in case of unavoidable circumstances. In that case, any request for refund/adjustment of fees shall not be entertained.

The current 26 March exam date had been postponed from 26 February in early January.

Exam fees this year have increased from Rs 2,560 to Rs 3,570 per candidate, with last year’s prices still applying for candidates from certain reserved categories; the BCI’s controversial contractor ITES Horizon had been quietly reappointed to conduct this exam, despite BCI chairman Manan Kumar Mishra having promised a tender.