The Bar Council of India (BCI) delayed a lawyer’s practice certificate by four years, and has now been ordered by the Madras high court to make it available to the lawyer as soon as possible, as first reported by Live Law.

The petitioner M Ambir Priya got enrolled before the Tamil Nadu bar council on 7 August 2011 and appeared for the All India Bar Examination on 8 January 2012 (AIBE-IV), which she passed. It took the BCI longer than one year to release the complete results for the AIBE IV

To date Priya has not been given the Certificate of Practice (CoP). Counsel for the BCI and state bar council M Subash Babu told the court that “necessary instructions” to the Tamil Nadu bar council will be given to issue Priya’s CoP “as expeditiously as possible”, but also according to procedure “the Certificate of Practice shall be issued by the Bar Council of India under the signature of the chairman, Bar Council of India and therefore there is a delay”.

Justice M Sathyanarayanan of the Madurai bench of the high court, on 15 September 2016, directed the bar councils to issue Priya’s CoP as expeditiously as possible and preferably within three weeks. Priya’s writ petition was disposed of without any order for costs on either party to the case.