The Supreme Court Advocates on Record (AOR) exam has produced the lowest pass rate in 4 years after it dropped down to 19%.
125 new AORs were announced on 24 February in the results of the June 2017 exam, which judging by the list of roll numbers in the results was taken by around 650 candidates.
Nalsar Hyderabad alumnus Dhananjay Mishra and VIPS Delhi 2010 alumnus Neha Malik scored the highest marks in this edition of the exam. Mishra was appearing for the exam for the first time but Malik was reappearing for it after having failed one out of the four papers that comprise the exam.
Malik, who was reappearing for the paper on Supreme Court practice and procedures, commented: “You can’t just go through the Supreme Court Rules 2013 and get through. You have to practically be very thorough with the procedure [followed for filing in the Supreme Court].”
Marks break up
Both Mishra and Malik scored 296 marks out of 400 or 74% marks each. Malik, who had scored 90, 72 and 68 marks out of 100 in the other three papers in the AOR exam in 2016, had failed the SC practice and procedure paper in 2016 after scoring only 43 marks out of 100.
An aggregate of 60% with at least 50% marks in each of the 4 papers is required to clear the exam. If candidates manage to score 60% aggregate marks while failing to clear one of the four papers with 50% marks, or if candidates fail to score an aggregate of 60% while clearing all the papers with at least 50% marks in each, they are allowed to reappear within one year.
Paper strategy
Malik was in the litigation team of Naik & Naik & Co and practising in the Bombay high court from 2010 to 2012, after which she joined the chambers of AORs Ravinder Narain and Rajan Narain and is continuing there.
She said that while the practice and procedure paper was not tougher than the paper on drafting and leading cases, it did require the kind of knowledge which comes only with “being very very regular practising at the Supreme Court” and merely “mugging up” the bare acts and rules does not cut it as preparation for the paper.
On the “toughest” paper - leading cases and drafting, she commented: “Its syllabus is very huge. The leading cases are more than 40 in number. Then there are recent judgments and the view of the Supreme Court on the same issues in the present scenario, the major changes and amendments in the constitution. So the most extensive study and most of your time goes in reading those cases.”
“All these years you have studied those cases with a different viewpoint but for this exam its a different ballgame altogether,“ she said adding,“apart from that the drafting paper requires very good skills on drafting special leave petitions - civil and criminal, affidavits, bills, general power of attorney and everything in 3 hours on fresh situations.”
She said that the classes for the exam, which senior advocates address one month before the exam - including ones such as Indira Jaising, PP Rao and TR Andhyarujina - were available free of cost to AOR exam aspirants and were extremely helpful due to “the way the elaborate and make suggestions about what they’re expecting out of us”.
24% AORs made it past the June 2016 exam while the pass rate in 2015 was 30% and in 2014 was 22%. The toppers last year were from Pune University and from Symbiosis Pune.
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Sure?
They have taken classes in the past..and the same have been extremely useful for the budding AORs.. if you want you can recheck the facts for yourself.
Hence, the low success rate of NLU grads in this exam means nothing. On the contrary, the exam should be restructured in accordance with the syllabus of NLUs.
Besides, no one really needs to go to the classes. You go for them as they are lectures from the best of the best in the industry and to learn. If you are a regular and ethical lawyer at the Supreme Court, which is the basic requirement of the AoR exam, you should be able to self study and 'Ace' it.
Give it a shot buddy, I'm sure your NLU diploma will hold you in good stead to crack the AoR exam.
I totally smirked while typing that out. What a farce it has turned out to be!
Case of sour grapes??
I do not see the NALSAR topper (mentioned above) crying hoarse!!
That said, comments posted here compel me to point out that critical thinking is not the sole preserve of NLUs. Nor, (I address commentor no. 7, here), are NLU grads "better".
NLU grads certainly have advantages derived from being spoon-fed for five years, which does train students to think in a certain way. If I were paying that kind of money, I'd expect such an education, too. The kids at JGLS are as good because they are put through the same rigourous curriculum.
Traditional colleges provide a different kind of value. We have a diverse crowd, and celebrate this diversity.
My 3 year LLB class has a few students from IIT, and a blind man who only speaks Marathi, (he probably gave the MU exam in that language). In a senior year, I have a prominent VC with an MBA from Stanford and a rather impressive profile on Bloomberg. We have top military officers, business people, and professionals in our class. Most of these people interact with fresh graduates/five year students as equals for the most part, allowing students to gain perspectives that NLU students can only dream of, and a network to envy.
The diversity and difference in foundational education obviously means that we have a mix of exceptional as well as academically poor students. NLUs, for all the criticism against JGLS, also consists mainly of a bunch of brats -- not everyone can pay (or get a loan for) Rs 1 lakh a year just for tuition! We pay less than Rs 7000, and still provide need based scholarships!
I am not saying that GLC students are better than NLU students; merely pointing out that the assumption that NLU students are better than the rest is delusional.
There are good students and bad students everywhere. The NLUs provide (much) better teaching and infrastructure, besides a superior pedagogy; traditional colleges provide freedom of exploration, a forced sense of responsibility, and amazing opportunities for those willing to grab them.
In my third year, when I won a top moot in GLC, one 5th year guy from GLC, who was also competing in the same moot came and told us that he could not believe third year students could make the kind of arguments that we had made and most probably our memos had been prepared by our seniors. We had a hearty laugh.
GLC is a nice South Bombay well, but a well nevertheless.
That said, I agree that most students from GLC are from Mumbai (not necessarily South).
Also, GLC is more of an illusory well, rather than a real one. The lack of infrastructure and proper teaching/lecture suggests to most that there is no real exposure to ideas, opinions or experiences. I feel this is illusory, because opportunities to learn are rife through student hosted lectures (SPIL does a great job), internships with prominent senior counsel etc...it's just that to succeed, GLC students need an enormous amount of self-discipline and general awareness.
That's where NLUs are better for the majority of the student population -- more enforced discipline and good teaching ensures that even an idiot learns something.
As far as the "disbelief" about your arguing skills are concerned, I do think that it was meant to be a compliment, and not meant to be taken literally :)
Citing a moot win as a reason for NLU students' competence is laughable. While a factor, a lawyer is made of more than moot achievements.
I do not disagree that NLUs create decent lawyers, and that critical thinking is an important skill which is much ignored in traditional colleges, but I do maintain that decent lawyers come out of other colleges as well, and that inspite of not being taught to think critically, many students in non-NLUs learn to do so. Thus, NLU snobbery often smacks of delusion.
1. Very few NLU grads give these exams in the first place. They prefer to work with premier law firms.
2. The success rate of NLU candidates in these exams is actually close to 100% in the first attempt, which is phenomenal.
3. As pointed out earlier, NLU grads are trained to think critically and contextually rather than mug up from dukkis --- please see this post by a successful UPSC candidate saying that the way to learn is to memorise dukkis: rijubafna.com/2014/07/law/
Thus, if anything, it only reinforces that NLU grads are better.
BAD JOURNALISM!!
This can be illustrated as under :
Roll nos 22. 23. 24 passed
Whereas Roll Nos 1-21 barring 11 failed.
Roll Nos 34-52 barring 43 failed
Whereas 53-61 barring 57 & 58 passed
Whereas roll nos from 300-317 barring 301,303,304, 305 and 312 passed , roll nos 343 to 427 barring 346, 366 and 395 failed
436 to 485 barring roll nos 441-444 failed
Roll no 559-599 barring 573 and 574 failed
634 to 642 passed en masse whereas 643 onwards till last all failed.
Between Roll Nos 300 and 350, twenty one (21) persons passed and four qualified under R. 11(2$. Only 25 people failed. Similarly between roll no 600-650, twenty seven persons (27) passed and only 14 failed.
39 out of 125,who passed are women
7 out of 19 who cleared under R 11(1) are women
13 out of 56 candidates who made in 11(2) are women
59 out of those 206 who cleared are women.
Hardly seven out of 206 are from South India.
Out of 50 persons, on an average at least 30/40 persons failed. This is an 80% failure rate. Congrats Board of Examiners ! You succeeded admirably.
People failed by one mark? How is that possible in a subjective exam ?
Questions abound !
Four subjective question papers attempted by 650 candidates means evaluating about 2600 answer papers. Exams were held in June and results were announced only after 240 days.
How can an examiner who made the question paper, took the review lecture also value the answer papers?
The Supreme Court cannot thrust an AOR upon an aggrieved or condemned person and insist that he/she must be engaged to act or appear inn the SC. The AOR regulations framed by the SC under Article 145 are "unconstitutional and against the principles of natural justice".
AOR professional misconduct is seldom acted upon by the SC even-though they are appointed as AOR's after an elaborate exercise that takes place over 24 months. Since greatest importance is given to professional ethics, SC must have a disciplinary committee that acts against professional misconduct by AOR.
Unethical nexus between AOR and senior counsels in the SC must be investigated and persons must be subjected to disciplinary action and punishment if found guilty.
Those AOR's who demand excess fees and lend their names must de-barred.
Online filing of cases must be made glitch free and anyone in the country must be able to file a case in the SC without having to goto an AOR.
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