A group of law graduates from Delhi University have invoked the Supreme Court’s writ jurisdiction under Article 32 of the Indian Constitution as two students of the NUALS Kochi have filed yet another petition before the Kerala High Court against the All India Bar Examinations.
The petitioner students Anoop Prakash Awasthi, Rahul Kumar and Prashant Narang told Legally India that their writ petition (diary number 21289/2010) has surpassed procedural hurdles and will be listed for hearing towards the end of July with the Supreme Court registry after having cleared all the objections.
The petitioners have challenged the Bar Council of India’s rule making power under which amendments had been brought to provide for the bar exams as ultra vires and arbitrary.
While pleading violation of the fundamental rights, the petitioners have relied upon the case of V Sudeer vs BCI as the main point of contention. Awasthi had interned with Sudeer in the past.
Excerpts from the petition read:
"That the impugned amendment as claimed to be made under section 49(1)(ah) of the Act, is beyond the rule making power of Bar Council of India as held by this Hon’ble Court in V. Sudeer v. Bar Council of India (1999) 3 SCC 176, as: pre-enrolment training and examination constitute a topic which the legislature in its wisdom entrusted to the State Bar Councils and not to the Bar Council of India."
"That the impugned amendment violates the fundamental rights of petitioners as conferred by Constitution of India vide Article 14, Article 19(1)(g) and Article 21."
Meanwhile, the Hindustan Times has reported that the BCI has taken an affirmative step to club together all the pending petitions, seeking their transfer before the SC in order to be heard together.
Legally India had reported on 13 July that the BCI's planned to club the petitions into one Supreme Court petition.
In Kerala, the petition filed by Sujith Menon and Sriram of Thripunithura is at least the eighth such case after at least seven writ petitions have been reported as filed before the various high courts of the country.
Also, SCBA president and BJP Rajya Sabha member senior advocate Ram Jethmalani has opined against the bar exam.
Students take bar exam to SC as writ petition count hits 9
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Such a legislation which is outside the ambit of the Act created by a subordinate rule making body is generally called a "color-able legislation".
By a omission to the Act In 1973 they felt it fit to remove Bar Exams because of the powers of quality control of the education of lawyers given to the BCI (little did they know back then that it would not be enough.)
Jean Rousseau in "The Social Contract" said "Good Laws lead to the making of better one; bad one bring out worse."
The Bar Exams are a excellent and brilliant Idea but they should be brought into force through an amendment to the Act.
The Doctrine of precedents applies in Indian courts so even other bodies of Delegated legislation will be effected by a rule in this matter of Restricting the Rule making power of a Delegated bodies.
Judgment in this case will be one to watch out for as Mr. Ram Jethmalani has moved the Sc regarding Bar exams.
[...]
So we will find out how much Power does the SC let the Delegated Bodies like the BCI exercise.
We made a mistake in the past lest we repeat it in the future worse laws will come our way.
Also the Knowledge Commission's report on Legal Reforms and the 184th law commission report they all say the same thing
"No Bar Exams without amending the Act."
If i would get the petitioners' email-ids i would send them these reports with important page numbers if they have not incorporated the same in their matter.
sorry about the mess up
We also want to say thanks to Legally India for support.
My email ID is ""
My hats off for Mr. Rahul, Mr Prashant and Mr. Awasthi for taking this initiative.
Please don't get distracted by some absurd comments, go ahead. Once again my heartiest congratulation to all those who has atleast raised the voice agints this.
I am happy to see the support that we are getting in our Common legal Cause, We are fighting for our legitmate right. It is a fight for us as well as for thousands of our brothers and sisters, ill fated to have graduated in law in the academic sessionn 2009-10. Besides all other constitutional and legal arguments; my humble submission to all is " How can our practical abilities in law be assessed by a theoritical objective type examination to be held six months later"
We are absolutely barred from legal practise, BCI thinks we are incompetent and forgets that throughout our Law graduation we have been extensively working with emminent Lawyers of long stading and high repute. This exmination is discouraging internship and the legal profession in future may loose the oppartunity to nurther its best practising talents.
We must not forget that we are living in India and not in USA or England or Canada and very few of us are fortunate enough to study law in a foreign country like our Solicitor General.
Further legal practise is not only done in Hon'ble Supreme Court or HC or District Courts only, but even in 'Tahsil', only Law graduates are permitted to practise. The proposed Exam may work as bottle neck for legal work in tahsils.
Further a Notery neither practise nor issue legal opinion and still he is one of the most important component of legal practise. If such unreasonable reforms are at all warranted, let BCI come with some proposal to scrap these institutions(of course BCI can't do that).
Actually BCI being overburdened with all kinds of work other than promoting standards of Legal Education, in a face saving exercise is burdening us with Examination to show that they are atleat doing something.
BCI has to rework the same otherwise the rules would not stand to face judicial touchstone
I welcome the comments from from those who oppose us. They are not revealing their Identity because their heart says that are on wrong path. I quote here Great Hindi Poet TULSI DAS " Nindak nere rakhia, angan kuti chhavay" ie. Keep the critics near giving them proper place.
I hope, I and my group is fearless and ready to take any Challenge. I am giving my Mob. No. 9891491829 and my mail id- . Feel free to call/write me or abuse me.....
and finally case is listed for hering on 2nd August 2010 at WP(C)253/2010.
Regards
Anoop Prakash Awasthi
don't blame them
- "We must not forget that we are living in India and not in USA or England"
so that means we can't emulate them and try to set high standards?
- "and very few of us are fortunate enough to study law in a foreign country like our Solicitor General."
as far as i know he has studied in india. how is this relevant anyway.
there are many important reforms that are due and will also help you (e.g. foreign law firms). do not waste time by filing stupid petitions.
And secondly, if people want to talk about graduates in a certain academic year being unfortunate, then no batch was as disadvantaged as the batch that graduated in 2009-10. Recruitments were at an all time low and only those guys know how the market was. But most of them accepted the circumstances and fought them instead of whining and complaining.
This bar exam is hardly the demon it is being made out to be. I understand all the arguments against it but I doubt they would bear much fruit. After all the judges know the deplorable state in most lower courts and if they can do something to improve it, my guess is that they will. But anyways, i wish luck to all the petitioners. Hopefully you guys will go on to become good lawyers, irrespective of whether you get to take this test or not.
When we complete the LLB we have no mental peace because. The BCI was giving notifications you have exams expecally 2009-2010 who have completed LLB they have exam. what is this you are thinking this 2009-2010 batch students are poor in education they don't now any thig when you will conduct the exam please conduct all the Advocates up to now who have passed the LLB/BL. In this process SBC has enroled the LLB students and they gave ID cards also like Advocate.
I hope, I and my group is fearless and ready to take any Challenge. I am giving my Mob. No. 8019358599 and my mail id- Feel free to call/write me or abuse me.....
Thankyou Friends
One more thing - apart from the so called 'legitimate right' of the graduating class of 2010, you cannot discount/ignore that there are several other competing and perhaps more important interests which are served by a regulation for quality control into the legal profession. For sure these interests would be considered by the Supreme Court.
@ 19: As for the worthy lawyer in the making who has posted that comment - perhaps for special cases like yours, there is need for more stringent entry level scrutiny. I would certainly not rest comfortable with the thought that a worthy such as you can be weeded out in disciplinary proceedings at a later date.
Dont worry we are there to fight... no matter we win or not... we will fight till last...
@ Mr fatehpal singh can u send the committee report and any valuable doc to (we are a group of students from south India)
Gella srinivas rao plz send if u have any valuble documents to the above mentioned mail address...
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