NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday upheld the validity of the All India Bar Examination, saying the the Bar Council of India has sufficient powers to prescribe pre-or post-enrolment exams for advocates.
A five-judge bench led by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul ruled that Advocates Act conferred adequate powers to the BCI to prescribe the norms.
The bench, also comprising justices Sanjiv Khanna, A S Oka, Vikram Nath, and J K Maheshwari, said, the effect of this would be left to the BCI as to what stage the AIBE is to be held pre or post enrolment".
The bench also declared that an enrolled advocate who takes up a non-legal job for at least five years will have to sit for the AIBE exam again in order to practice as lawyer.
It further said that the experience as a lawyer will count subsequently.
The BCI, for its part, said the requirements of apprenticeship and bar examination are extremely pivotal in ensuring the high standards of the legal profession.
It must be noted that the introduction of such a requirement would (i) prevent law schools from escaping the high standards imposed by the governing legal education body; (ii) promote curriculum reform thus increasing the quality of lawyers; (iii) incline students to inter-relate and connect the subjects studied in school with contextual problems and challenges; (iv) provide for a more objective scenario of testing knowledge; and lastly (v) create a uniform and fair method in granting enrollment to the Bar, and eliminate possibility of subjectivity, it said.
"If the entry of advocates is not regulated by BCI by means of relevant Rules, the entire justice delivery system would be inevitably hampered. The pre-enrollment bar examination is being conducted in many countries including USA, UK, Canada, France, Germany and China," it said.
"One can pursue Law as per the prescribed syllabi of the BCI but for the purpose of obtaining license to practice, he or she must fulfill all the requirements and conditions prescribed by the BCI framed under the Rules in consonance with the Advocates Act," it said.
The BCI had asked the top court to overrule the judgements passed in V Sudeer vs Bar Council of India & Anr reported in (1999) and Indian Council of Legal Aid and Advice and Others vs Bar Council of India & Anr (1995) to the extent it takes away the Power of the BCI to regulate the entry of law graduates in the profession prior to their registration.
The story to be updated with detailed judgement.
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