Exclusive: The Delhi High Court has admitted law graduate Anoop Prakash Awasthi’s writ petition and issued notice to the Bar Council of India (BCI) to seek its response within three days on the question of whether marks should be disclosed to bar examinees.

Justice Murlidhar heard petitioner Awasthi and BCI’s standing counsel Sanjeev Sachdeva twice before finally directing today that the BCI submit its reply by 10 March.

According to Awasthi, Sachdeva seemed favourably inclined towards propositions such as not awarding prizes to the best three scorers in the exam and considering the petitioner’s demand for a “statement of marks” when the matter was first mentioned for admission today.

However, according to Awasthi, there was now a change in the BCI’s stance and Sachdeva stated that the BCI chairman Gopal Subramanium had declined to concede in favour of disclosing marks and other pleas.

The matter was listed as item no 40 in court number 30 before justice Murlidhar at 10:45 am earlier today.

Awasthi told Legally India that Sachdeva said that the idea of awarding prizes was only at a stage of discussions and that he would seek instruction on whether marks should be declared or not.

According to Awasthi the judge did not see the harm in disclosing marks, even if everyone would ask for their marks. “The judge said in any case whomsoever fails would ask for marks – why do you want to be in that situation, so it is better you disclose,” said Awasthi.

Awasthi added before the court that he was not interested in seeing others’ marks but every candidate should have an individual account through which they could access their marks.

Sachdeva told the court, according to Awasthi, that the idea behind not disclosing the marks was that the BCI did not want advocates and schools who scored maximum marks to use that as branding.

The petition was filed on 1 March and listed for first hearing today after court delays while the All India Bar Examination was conducted across 26 cities yesterday.

Sachdeva declined to comment and Subramanium was unavailable for comment.