<p>Last year, a Right to Information (RTI) application revealed that 51% of the candidates failed the All India Bar Exam (AIBE) 18. This makes one wonder about the pass percentages in the previous exams and raises questions about causes of the high failure rate, background of the failing or passing candidates – who, really, becomes an advocate in the country. The answers lie in the data preserved by the Bar Council of India (BCI). However, multiple RTIs and appeals could elicit only partial answers from the BCI.</p>.<p>Since the introduction of the AIBE in 2011, 7,44,160 candidates have cleared the exam with an average pass percentage of 75.38% and become advocates. However, what is missing in these statistics is the crucial data on who these successful candidates are. The RTI application sought details on the caste, gender, and language preferences of candidates who passed or failed, but these questions were left unanswered. In the appeal against the unanswered questions, the BCI evaded these queries, claiming that such information fell outside the scope of ‘information’ under the Right to Information Act, 2005. Citing the Supreme Court judgement in the Central Board of Secondary Education and Anr. vs. Aditya Bandopadhyay and Ors., the BCI claimed it was not obligated to provide data requiring “inferences or assumptions”. The AIBE applicants are required to provide details about their caste, gender and language mandatorily. Therefore, these details are hard facts that must be recorded in the BCI’s records rather than being inferred or assumed information.</p>.<p>Consequently, this refusal raises two questions: Is it an attempt by the BCI to restrict the information from public scrutiny or is it a symptom of bureaucratic inertia? The implications of withholding such data are profound. In a world where data drives policymaking and societal progress, the refusal to share such crucial data perpetuates opacity. Such opacity erodes public trust in institutions and their motives and sparks apprehensions that they operate to maintain established hierarchies. One may also suspect that data is being hidden to avoid acknowledging the systemic inequalities.</p>.The perils of India’s forgotten Census.<p>Focusing on the caste composition within the Indian legal community, it is evident that the majority of judges belong to upper caste groups, though less apparent is the fact that most lawyers are as well. There is, and always has been, a chronic under-representation of lower castes in the Indian legal system, including the law schools. This trend can be observed at every level of the system. For instance, a disproportionately large number of Supreme Court Judges have been upper caste.</p>.<p>Embedded biases</p>.<p>The socio-legal and legal theories are primarily built on the patterns of knowledge and ignorance of those people of privilege and serve to maintain the domination and hierarchy of the dominant castes rather than demolish it. Charles Mills described this process as follows: the structures of domination and subordination in any given society result in a conceptual apparatus shaped by the biases of the dominant groups. Such an apparatus will not only exclude caste considerations, at its worst, because of the necessity to maintain the hierarchy, it might also be actively harmful. This theory precisely explains the modus operandi of the caste system in the Indian institutions, including the legal system, and the civil society.</p>.<p>The male-dominated nature of the bar can also be viewed through this lens. Even without specific figures, it is evident that women and other marginalised genders are not proportionately represented in the legal populace compared to their share in the national population. The gap persists because the legal system which has been tasked with abolishing the patriarchal hierarchy to prevent and punish human rights violations against women and other marginalised genders actually upholds and preserves it. Therefore, it goes without saying that patriarchy will prevail disguised in the language of legality. At this juncture, the denial of data about the gender of the AIBE candidates by the BCI further exacerbates the questions and concerns about the inequality and under-representation of women and other marginalised genders in the Indian legal populace.</p>.<p>Finally, language is a factor that causes inequality in the representation of different communities in the bar. The issue of language domination can allow us to analyse fundamentally the political outlook of the judiciary. The higher judiciary, particularly the Supreme Court, operates mostly in English. The knowledge of English in India has largely been a privilege of the urban elite who can afford to study at private schools. CLAT, the entrance examination candidates must clear to gain admission into national law universities, is also held only in English. There are no courses offered at these institutions designed to cater to students from different social and economic strata of the multilingual Indian society and with differing levels of English language competence.</p>.<p>While the AIBE offers language options, the effectiveness of this provision remains unclear due to the lack of data. Are students facing challenges because the bare acts (required for the AIBE open book exam) are not readily available in regional languages? Should the BCI mandate the availability of translated bare acts for the AIBE? Is there a disparity in the passing rates between students who take the exam in English and those who opt for regional languages? These critical questions remain unanswered.</p>.<p>Clearly, the system is designed to make it difficult for non-English speaking and lower-class lawyers. In a profession that serves as the backbone of justice, ensuring equity and representation among advocates is not just desirable – it is imperative. Without transparency, policymakers and activists are left navigating blind spots, unable to design interventions that reflect the needs of communities oppressed on the basis of caste, gender, and language. The least the BCI could do is increase data transparency. Greater diversity and removal of barriers to entry are necessary to increase the number of lawyers who do not benefit from the status quo.</p>.<p><em>(Deval is a Bengaluru-based transactional lawyer; Jeevan is a student in the Public International Law programme at Leiden University)</em></p>
<p>Last year, a Right to Information (RTI) application revealed that 51% of the candidates failed the All India Bar Exam (AIBE) 18. This makes one wonder about the pass percentages in the previous exams and raises questions about causes of the high failure rate, background of the failing or passing candidates – who, really, becomes an advocate in the country. The answers lie in the data preserved by the Bar Council of India (BCI). However, multiple RTIs and appeals could elicit only partial answers from the BCI.</p>.<p>Since the introduction of the AIBE in 2011, 7,44,160 candidates have cleared the exam with an average pass percentage of 75.38% and become advocates. However, what is missing in these statistics is the crucial data on who these successful candidates are. The RTI application sought details on the caste, gender, and language preferences of candidates who passed or failed, but these questions were left unanswered. In the appeal against the unanswered questions, the BCI evaded these queries, claiming that such information fell outside the scope of ‘information’ under the Right to Information Act, 2005. Citing the Supreme Court judgement in the Central Board of Secondary Education and Anr. vs. Aditya Bandopadhyay and Ors., the BCI claimed it was not obligated to provide data requiring “inferences or assumptions”. The AIBE applicants are required to provide details about their caste, gender and language mandatorily. Therefore, these details are hard facts that must be recorded in the BCI’s records rather than being inferred or assumed information.</p>.<p>Consequently, this refusal raises two questions: Is it an attempt by the BCI to restrict the information from public scrutiny or is it a symptom of bureaucratic inertia? The implications of withholding such data are profound. In a world where data drives policymaking and societal progress, the refusal to share such crucial data perpetuates opacity. Such opacity erodes public trust in institutions and their motives and sparks apprehensions that they operate to maintain established hierarchies. One may also suspect that data is being hidden to avoid acknowledging the systemic inequalities.</p>.The perils of India’s forgotten Census.<p>Focusing on the caste composition within the Indian legal community, it is evident that the majority of judges belong to upper caste groups, though less apparent is the fact that most lawyers are as well. There is, and always has been, a chronic under-representation of lower castes in the Indian legal system, including the law schools. This trend can be observed at every level of the system. For instance, a disproportionately large number of Supreme Court Judges have been upper caste.</p>.<p>Embedded biases</p>.<p>The socio-legal and legal theories are primarily built on the patterns of knowledge and ignorance of those people of privilege and serve to maintain the domination and hierarchy of the dominant castes rather than demolish it. Charles Mills described this process as follows: the structures of domination and subordination in any given society result in a conceptual apparatus shaped by the biases of the dominant groups. Such an apparatus will not only exclude caste considerations, at its worst, because of the necessity to maintain the hierarchy, it might also be actively harmful. This theory precisely explains the modus operandi of the caste system in the Indian institutions, including the legal system, and the civil society.</p>.<p>The male-dominated nature of the bar can also be viewed through this lens. Even without specific figures, it is evident that women and other marginalised genders are not proportionately represented in the legal populace compared to their share in the national population. The gap persists because the legal system which has been tasked with abolishing the patriarchal hierarchy to prevent and punish human rights violations against women and other marginalised genders actually upholds and preserves it. Therefore, it goes without saying that patriarchy will prevail disguised in the language of legality. At this juncture, the denial of data about the gender of the AIBE candidates by the BCI further exacerbates the questions and concerns about the inequality and under-representation of women and other marginalised genders in the Indian legal populace.</p>.<p>Finally, language is a factor that causes inequality in the representation of different communities in the bar. The issue of language domination can allow us to analyse fundamentally the political outlook of the judiciary. The higher judiciary, particularly the Supreme Court, operates mostly in English. The knowledge of English in India has largely been a privilege of the urban elite who can afford to study at private schools. CLAT, the entrance examination candidates must clear to gain admission into national law universities, is also held only in English. There are no courses offered at these institutions designed to cater to students from different social and economic strata of the multilingual Indian society and with differing levels of English language competence.</p>.<p>While the AIBE offers language options, the effectiveness of this provision remains unclear due to the lack of data. Are students facing challenges because the bare acts (required for the AIBE open book exam) are not readily available in regional languages? Should the BCI mandate the availability of translated bare acts for the AIBE? Is there a disparity in the passing rates between students who take the exam in English and those who opt for regional languages? These critical questions remain unanswered.</p>.<p>Clearly, the system is designed to make it difficult for non-English speaking and lower-class lawyers. In a profession that serves as the backbone of justice, ensuring equity and representation among advocates is not just desirable – it is imperative. Without transparency, policymakers and activists are left navigating blind spots, unable to design interventions that reflect the needs of communities oppressed on the basis of caste, gender, and language. The least the BCI could do is increase data transparency. Greater diversity and removal of barriers to entry are necessary to increase the number of lawyers who do not benefit from the status quo.</p>.<p><em>(Deval is a Bengaluru-based transactional lawyer; Jeevan is a student in the Public International Law programme at Leiden University)</em></p>
