JOIN USToo high a price to clear the Bar
The Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court in Bar Council of India v. Bonnie Foi Law College & Others on February 10, 2023, upheld the validity of the All-India Bar Examination (AIBE). The judgement dealt with various nuances dealing with the powers of the Bar Council of India (BCI) to regulate the enrolment process of new lawyers.
However, what remains essential here is the conscious effort of the court to make the BCI aware of the colossal fee charged for enrolment in different state bar councils. While rendering the judgement, the court noted that the registration fee needs the BCI’s attention and observed that the fee charged by various State Bar Councils (SBCs) shouldn’t become oppressive at the threshold of a young student’s profession. The larger question is why the enrolment fee is such a pressing issue for new lawyers.
According to the Law Minister, India has approximately 1,721 law institutes, including 920 private law colleges, 248 private universities, 383 government law colleges, and 170 government universities. Every year, nearly a lakh students graduate from these 1,721 law schools, with a sizable proportion of them going on to work as advocates. Interestingly, Indian universities diversely offer law courses: while some offer five-year integrated law courses, others offer three-year degree courses.
These law schools produce around 80,000 law graduates each year, most of whom aspire to join the Bar and cater to the ever-growing demand for advocates. For instance, in 2023 around 1,71,402 law graduates appeared for the All India Bar Examination, which was introduced in 2010 to set minimum qualifying standards for a law graduate to start a legal practice. Presently, the candidates are required to register themselves as advocates with their respective SBCs to become eligible to appear for the exam.
However, registration with the respective SBCs has been a contested issue due to the fee charged for it. As more and more people have started seeing law as a suitable career on par with engineering and medicine, it has unearthed the conventional problems attached at every layer. Some SBCs charge as much as Rs 42,100 for admitting a fresh law graduate as an advocate, while the amount is in the range of Rs 15,000 to 25,000 for the rest of the State Bars. Now, the fee charged by these State Bars includes sub-heads such as enrolment, welfare scheme, application form, building funds, library funds, and miscellaneous.
On the other hand, the statutory position starkly contrasts reality. For example, the Advocates Act 1961 states that a fresh graduate must pay Rs 600 and Rs 150 to the State Bar Council and the BCI, respectively, in order to be admitted as an advocate.
However, the question is whether it is feasible to charge exorbitant fees to fresh graduates who have yet to begin earning. Will this not act as a gatekeeping exercise? While the fee may not be shocking to some, it is a significant barrier for underprivileged and marginalised graduates from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.
According to a report published by Increasing Diversity by Increasing Access to Legal Education (IDIA), which surveyed law students from five national law schools across the country, approximately 64.44% of students were first-generation lawyers, meaning they had no relatives who were lawyers. At the same time, around 15.27% of students reported the family income to be under Rs 3 lakh per annum. This fact has to be interpreted bearing in mind that the National Law Schools have often been accused of being an elite hub considering their fee and method of intake, and if the traditional law schools are to be considered, the number of students coming from weak socioeconomic backgrounds would be much higher. To put the exorbitant fees charged by state bar councils into perspective, the Banaras Hindu University charges approximately Rs 5,600 for completing the three-year law course. In contrast, the Uttar Pradesh State Bar Council charges around Rs. 16,665 for enrolling a fresh graduate—almost three times as much.
Deliberating on the issue of inclusiveness, the Chief Justice of India, DY Chandrachud, while delivering a speech in the Delhi High Court on December 7 of last year, emphasised the democratisation of courtrooms and making them more inclusive and equally accessible to people coming from varied backgrounds.
However, keeping exorbitant amounts as an entry fee deters new law graduates from entering the profession and tends to keep students from marginalised and low socioeconomic backgrounds away. The push must be towards incentivising joining the Bar for new graduates in response to the lucrative jobs offered by corporate firms.
(The writers are students at National Law University, Jabalpur)