'Manifestly Arbitrary' : Bar Council Member Opposes BCI Chief Manan Kumar Mishra's Order Barring NALSAR Students' Enrolment
BCI Member Manoj Kumar said that the students cannot be threatened with denial of enrollment.
A member of the Bar Council of India has strongly opposed the decision of BCI Chairman Manan Kumar Mishra to restrain State Bar Councils from enrolling students of NALSAR University of Law who obtained their law degrees in 2026, calling the blanket direction “manifestly arbitrary” and an infringement of the graduates' constitutional rights.
In a letter addressed to the BCI Chairman, Advocate N. Manoj Kumar, a member of both the Bar Council of India and the Bar Council of Kerala, expressed “deep anguish” over the direction issued by the BCI Chairman on August 13. The communication had directed that all students of NALSAR who obtained their law degrees in 2026 be kept from enrolment as advocates pending an inquiry into a campaign by a section of students against the participation of the Chief Justice of India in the convocation.
Taking objection to Mishra's stand, Manoj Kumar said, “In a democratic country, students, like every other citizen, are entitled to express their views and disagreement." He stated that threatening students with denial or indefinite deferment of enrolment merely for expressing an opinion was “wholly unwarranted” and amounted to “unparalleled arbitrariness.”
"Insofar as the communication itself recognises that mere participation in, or support of, a representation does not amount to disqualification and that the role of each individual has to be separately examined, the blanket prohibition against the entire 2026 batch is, therefore, manifestly arbitrary. The right of hundreds of eligible law graduates to seek enrolment cannot be suspended without any plausible reason," he wrote to BCI Chairman.
He cautioned that measures of this nature could create an impression that the BCI was seeking to appease the judiciary, and called upon the Chairman to withdraw the blanket direction “forthwith.”
"It is high time that the Bar Council of India refrains from measures that may give the impression of appeasing the judiciary and instead concentrates on its primary statutory responsibility of protecting the rights, privileges, and interests of the advocates' community and maintaining the independence and dignity of the Bar. The blanket direction should, therefore, be withdrawn forthwith."