Now Advocates have to pass an All India Bar examination before practicing in Courts
ONCE upon a time, advocates were considered to be the cream of society. Many of the top leaders of India's freedom struggle were lawyers. But over the years LAW has lost its lustre. The brightest boys and girls become engineers and doctors, the lesser ones become bureaucrats. Management, Banking, teaching, accounting etc., are the next preferred jobs. If there is nothing else, there is the Law College. You join a law college and after three years you are a qualified lawyer and can be registered with the Bar Council and start practising LAW. No wonder there is a steep fall in the standard of lawyers and consequently the judges. Everybody expresses deep concern about the falling standards, but nobody does anything about it.
Now the Bar Council is all set to change all this. Starting this year a law graduate can practise in the courts in India only after clearing the All India Bar Examination. Thank God it is only for the new entrants – at least half the existing lawyers are sure to fail. The date of the First All India Bar Examination is December 5, 2010. Registration for the Examination is from July 15 to September 30; results will be declared by December 31.
Salient Features of the Examination:
++ The All India Bar Examination will test skills and basic knowledge critical for a new entrant to the practice of the profession of law. It is intended to check for eligibility, rather than expertise.
++ Any law student graduating in Academic Year 2009-10 onwards would have to appear for the All India Bar Examination (after enrolment as an advocate) in order to practice law in India.
++ Twenty subjects from among those prescribed by the BCI for the syllabi of three- and five-year Ll.B. programmes.
++ Will be conducted in nine languages, and at various examination centres across India;
++ Application Fee of Rs.1,300/- (includes price of receiving preparatory materials)
++ ‘Open-book' format: advocates may bring preparatory materials, books, handwritten notes into the examination hall.
++ A hundred multiple-choice questions, to be marked on OMR answer sheets; Focus is on reasoning ability, rather than ability to memorise large texts. No percentage or ranks - advocates will merely pass or fail the All India Bar Examination
++ The Examination format is aimed at ensuring that a basic amount of preparation would be sufficient to clear it.
++ Adequate preparatory materials will be provided to each advocate, so as to ensure that lack of access to resources is not an impediment to preparing well for the All India Bar Examination.
++ The preparatory materials will be provided in the language that the advocate has chosen to appear for the examination. Model question papers will be provided along with the preparatory materials, as well as online.
++ The Examination shall be held at least twice each year in such month and such places that the Bar Council of India may determine from time to time.
++ An unsuccessful advocate may appear again for the Bar Examination, without any limit on the number of appearances.
++ The Certificate of Practice shall be issued by the Bar Council of India, under the signature of the Chairman, Bar Council of India, to the address of the successful advocate within 30 days of the date of declaration of results.
So, passing the BL degree examination is no more a ticket to the Courts. But isn't the Bar Council's examination an insult to the universities? Does the Medical Council conduct an examination for doctors?
While studying Law, I often used to wonder why the profession is so respected when the academic course that takes you there is a farce – most of the students pass the examination with the help of ‘thirty questions' guides and not bulky books. Law education was never serious – even in England, more than a hundred years ago as Mahatma Gandhi found out. He found it more difficult to pass the London Matriculation than the Bar examination!
We certainly need better quality lawyers and if the Bar examination is a step in that direction, so be it.
While on this issue, we bring you the story of a shy Indian who sailed to England more than a hundred years ago to study Law. See Called to the Bar - But Then? My Helplessness! in TIOL Top