In a big relief for the law students and a rap for the Bar Council of India, the Supreme Court has ruled that the bar council has no authority to take disciplinary action against law students. The big remarks from the Supreme Court came during the hearing in the NALSAR law university case, where the Bar Council of India had first issued an order against the students and later withdrew it.
The Supreme Court made it clear that the Bar Council of India (BCI) and State Bar Councils do not possess the statutory authority to initiate disciplinary action against law students. A Bar Council gets disciplinary jurisdiction over a law graduate only after they are enrolled as an advocate, the court added. Two alumni of NALSAR, Mihira Sood and Abhishek Tiwari, had approached the Supreme Court in this matter. Manan Kumar Mishra informed the court that the directives in question had been immediately withdrawn and the matter had been closed following a BCI meeting.
The Supreme Court declared that the directives by the BCI chairman Manan Kumar Mishra on August 13 were issued without any legal authority. The BCI order had called for halting the enrollment of the 2026 batch students at Hyderabad’s NALSAR University of Law and initiating an inquiry against students and faculty regarding an alleged a campaign against the CJI.
