The Supreme Court has said it will examine whether the Bar Council of India, as the statutory regulator of the legal profession, has the power to control and regulate law colleges and universities. Hearing pleas concerning the BCI-PEARL FIRST Trust and law institutions it has set up, the Court questioned how the BCI could be an expert body on legal education, observing that a regulator cannot itself run the institutions it is meant to regulate.
A member of the Bar Council of India has told the Supreme Court, in an affidavit, that important decisions have repeatedly been taken in the BCI’s name without deliberation among its members, including the August 13 action to bar the enrolment of NALSAR’s 2026 batch, which he says was never placed before the General Council. He also alleges the Attorney General and Solicitor General, ex-officio members, were not given notices or agendas of BCI meetings. The allegations are untested.
The Delhi High Court has dismissed as not maintainable a writ petition by a group of advocates, represented by Prashant Bhushan, seeking a CBI or independent probe into an alleged assault on protesting advocates at the Bar Council of India premises in August 2026, in which they wanted the role of BCI Chairman Manan Kumar Mishra examined. The Court held that the petitioners had an alternate efficacious remedy in a complaint to the Magistrate, that the conduct alleged made out at most a non-cognizable offence, and disapproved the submission that the Delhi Police would not act fairly because the respondent is a ruling-party MP.
The Delhi High Court has dismissed a criminal revision petition by a suspended advocate who, instead of appealing his Bar Council of India disciplinary punishment to the Supreme Court under Section 38 of the Advocates Act, sought to challenge it collaterally through a criminal complaint alleging offences under the SC/ST Act and the IPC against the judge who had rejected an earlier complaint. The Court held the only remedy against a BCI appellate order lies under Section 38, and that the revisional jurisdiction disclosed no error warranting interference.
BCI Chairman Manan Kumar Mishra apologised to law students over the NALSAR enrolment-bar row, saying an expression of regret “is not a matter of prestige or ego,” amid backlash from NALSAR and NLSIU. New Delhi: Bar Council of India (BCI) Chairman Manan Kumar Mishra has apologised to law students over the controversy arising from his […]
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 Bar Council of India has alleged that the ongoing student protests over examination paper leaks have been hijacked by anti-social and anti-national forces. BCI Chairman Manan Kumar Mishra urged lawyers, intellectuals and citizens to counter what he described as a foreign-backed bid to destabilise India.
