The BCI withdrew, within hours, its order barring enrolment of NALSAR’s 2026 batch over a campaign opposing CJI Surya Kant at convocation, saying most students were innocent.
New Delhi: The Bar Council of India (BCI) has withdrawn — within hours of issuing it — an order that had directed State Bar Councils not to enrol the 2026 graduating batch of NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad, over a student campaign opposing Chief Justice of India Surya Kant‘s proposed participation as chief guest at the institution’s convocation.
The reversal came in a fresh circular issued by BCI Chairman Manan Kumar Mishra on August 13, modifying an order the Chairman had passed earlier the same day. The net effect is that the graduating students may now enrol with the State Bar Councils of their choice, while the BCI continues to examine who was responsible for organising the campaign.
The order that was withdrawn
In the earlier circular, the BCI had directed that no student of NALSAR who had obtained the law degree in 2026 was to be enrolled by any State Bar Council as an advocate until further orders, in these terms:
“Till further orders, no student of NALSAR University of Law, who has obtained the Law Degree in the year 2026, shall be enrolled by any State Bar Council as an Advocate.”
That order — which would have blocked an entire graduating cohort from entering the profession over the actions of some of its members — drew immediate concern, and was rescinded the same day.
The withdrawal
Explaining the reversal, the fresh circular recorded that the members of the Council had deliberated and taken the view that the overwhelming majority of the graduating students were not party to the campaign:
“After thorough discussion the Members are of the unanimous view that as per the latest report, vast majority of the students of NALSAR (2026 pass out students) are innocent and they were not inclined to take part in the move of disrespect. Accordingly, the Council modifies the order of Chairman with regard to the ban on the enrolment of the NALSAR Students with the State Bar Councils. All the students will be entitled to get enrolled with the State Bar Councils of their choice.”
The circular went on to shift the focus from the student body to those the BCI said had instigated the campaign, stating:
“It has further been reported by some reliable sources that a handful of teachers and outsiders were instrumental in instigating the innocent students. The Council will wait for the inquiry report of the Learned Vice-Chancellor and the further action will be taken after receipt of the report.“
Recording the principle underlying the modification, the circular added: “No student shall be made to suffer without any fault on his part.”
ALSO READ: NALSAR Students Oppose CJI Surya Kant As Convocation Chief Guest
The BCI’s allegations against the faculty
While withdrawing the enrolment bar, the BCI did not retreat from the wider controversy. In its original communication, the regulator had framed the campaign as the product of what it described as internal academic politics, alleging:
“As per some reliable sources, there exists groupism and dirty politics among some of the academic staff and they have played very active role in misleading, instigating and misguiding the students. This is a very serious matter. The teachers, instead of involving themselves in their teaching job, are doing nasty politics in the campus. Bar Council of India, being the regulator of Legal Education cannot be a mute spectator of such a serious situation.”
The BCI has asked NALSAR Vice-Chancellor Prof. Srikrishna Deva Rao to furnish, within three days, an authenticated report identifying the persons “principally instrumental” in initiating, organising, drafting, coordinating or mobilising the campaign, along with a complete copy of any representation submitted and the list of signatories on record. It has said a final decision will be taken on August 19, 2026, after the University’s report is received.
Background: the convocation controversy
The dispute traces to a representation sent by a section of NALSAR’s 2026 graduating batch — endorsed by around 70 students, including members of the Students’ Bar Council — opposing any move to invite the Chief Justice of India as the chief guest at the convocation. The students’ objection rested on the CJI’s conduct and remarks in the recent proceedings concerning the police action against student protesters in Delhi, and on the “cockroach” remark of May, which the students read as dismissive of the youth. In their letter, they had written that receiving their degrees “from a dignitary whose recent public conduct, as reported, appears dismissive of serious allegations of police brutality against protesting citizens sits uncomfortably with what we have been taught to value during our time at NALSAR.”
By convention, the sitting Chief Justice of India is invited as the chief guest at NALSAR’s convocation, and the university had not, at the time of the students’ representation, officially confirmed the CJI’s presence.
The questions the episode raises
The BCI’s intervention, and its swift partial retreat, raise issues that go beyond the immediate controversy — and they cut in more than one direction.
The regulator’s power over enrolment is real: under the Advocates Act, 1961, the BCI oversees legal education and the admission of persons to the profession, and enrolment with a State Bar Council is the gateway to practice. A direction barring enrolment is therefore among the most consequential instruments the BCI can deploy against a law graduate. The initial order applied that instrument to an entire batch, most of whom had no connection with the campaign — which is precisely the objection the Council itself came to accept when it recorded that no student should suffer without fault. The principle that penal or disabling action must be tied to individual culpability, rather than imposed collectively, is a basic one, and the reversal aligns the BCI’s action with it.
At the same time, the episode leaves live the more contested question the BCI has now trained its attention on — whether faculty members or outsiders improperly instigated the students, and what, if anything, follows from a students’ representation objecting to a chief guest. That a body of law students voicing an opinion about their own convocation should trigger a regulatory inquiry into their teachers is itself a matter on which the legal-education community is unlikely to be of one mind. For now, the students can enrol; the inquiry into who organised their campaign continues, with the BCI’s final decision due on August 19.
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