BCI transparency

The Bar Council of India (BCI) renewed its dubiously awarded bar exam contract to underperforming exam agency ITES Horizon, without a public tender of the contract and without holding a council meeting for members’ consensus on the renewal.

The suspension of 20 more errant lawyers by the_Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry_, as reported by the Times of India takes the toll of Madras lawyers suspended recently from practicing in any court or tribunal, to 35.

Among the latest 20 suspended advocates are 10 who laid siege to the court of Madras high court chief justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul on 14 September.

10 more lawyers of the court, not among the suspended 20, maybe awaiting action over their misbehaviour with the Central Industrial Security Force officers deployed at the court who, the lawyers claim, had filmed the frisking of a woman advocate.

The _Bar Council of India (BCI) _has reportedly said that following its September 2015 precedent of direct action against the lawyers if the state bar council fails to act stringently, it may again take direct action in the present case as well.

Bar Council of India (BCI) associate managing trustee Rajinder Singh Rana and former vice chairman Raju Dhanapal Raj were tried before a special CBI court in Delhi yesterday, for allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs 6 lakh to approve Global Law College in Ghaziabad.

The Bar Council of India (BCI) has suspended 15 lawyers who were allegedly involved in violence in the Madras high court, reported The Hindu and others.

Two weeks after Bar Council of India (BCI) chairman Manan Kumar Mishra had said at an event that 30 per cent of lawyers were "fake", held "fraudulent degrees" or were "non-practising" but still on the rolls, the government's Press Information Bureau (PIB) reported yesterday that the BCI told the government that "the number of fake lawyers cannot be exactly ascertained by now".

Kian Ganz looks into the BCI’s latest claim that 30 per cent of lawyers are not really lawyers and asks, how the BCI knows.

Two publications, Livelaw, which caters to lawyers, and The Hoot, which primarily has journalists as an audience, have written about Bar Council of India (BCI) chairman Manan Kumar Mishra’s legal notice against Legally India.

Legally India has responded to the legal notice sent by Bar Council of India (BCI) chairman Manan Kumar Mishra on 25 May 2015 to Legally India, Kian Ganz and Prachi Shrivastava.

Bar Council of India (BCI) chairman Manan Kumar Mishra has sent an unsolicited email to Legally India’s editor Kian Ganz earlier today, after having sent a legal notice claiming defamation just over one week ago.

The Bar Council of India (BCI) chairman Manan Kumar Mishra has sent a letter to Legally India and 147 other recipients, including journalists, the President and Prime Minister of India, all Supreme Court judges and high court judges and others.

The BCI’s 2012 meeting minutes regarding the All India Bar Exam (AIBE) have revealed details of the process by which the contract to conduct the fourth and subsequent AIBEs was awarded to ITeS Horizon.

The Bar Council of India (BCI) has complied with Legally India’s 20 October 2014 right to information (RTI) request on 20 April 2015, supplying around 1,600 pages of documents.

The Bar Council of India (BCI) has allowed Legally India’s Right to Information (RTI) appealagainst the regulator, having in December backtracked on its earlier position to provide information.

You may have noticed that Legally India's once-much-beloved newsletter of 122 issues had sadly been on a multi-year hiatus. Well, it’s back.

Last year the Bar Council of India (BCI) rejected a lawyer’s right to information (RTI) request and appeal on the All India Bar Examination (AIBE) by simply not answering the majority of queries.

The Bar Council of India (BCI) requires lawyers who take the All India Bar Examination (AIBE) to waive their statutory and fundamental rights.

This is a short story and video of how LI tried and failed getting the BCI chairman to be more transparent.