The Bombay High Court has directed the Bar Council of India (BCI) to forthwith scrutinize and process the applications submitted by four law colleges seeking approval and, if the applications are found in order, grant the necessary approvals by August 6, 2026. The Court further directed the Directorate of Higher Education, Pune to verify the approvals and include the approved colleges in its list.

A Division Bench of Justice R.I. Chagla and Justice Farhan P. Dubash was hearing a batch of writ petitions filed by law colleges regarding the colleges' pending approvals from the BCI, due to which they were not included in the list of approved colleges for participation in the CAP Round 1 admission process.

By an order dated July 30, 2026, the Court had directed the University of Mumbai to forthwith issue conditional affiliation certificates upon payment of the requisite penalty. It had further directed that if colleges upload such conditional affiliation certificates and the prescribed documentation and fees, the certificates should be treated as compliance with the requirement of submitting an affiliation certificate from the University. However, despite the colleges uploading the necessary documents and paying the fees, the BCI did not grant the necessary approvals.

The BCI informed the Court that the BCI would require at least a week more in the case of three colleges and a couple of days in the case of the fourth college to scrutinise and grant the necessary approval.

The Court noted that all four colleges had complied with the timelines and submitted their applications on the BCI portal. It observed:

“If the requisite verification and resultant approval is not given by the BCI in a timely manner, it would result in the Petitioners being unable to participate in the CAP Round 1, for no fault of theirs. This would result in grave and irreparable loss to them.”

Accordingly, the Court directed the BCI to forthwith scrutinize and process the applications submitted by the four petitioner colleges as expeditiously as possible and, if the applications were found in order, grant the necessary approvals on or before August 6, 2026. Upon grant of the approvals, the colleges were directed to upload them through their online login IDs, following which the Directorate of Higher Education, Pune was directed to immediately verify the same and grant its approval on or before August 7, 2026.

The State CET Cell was directed to extend the last date for 'College Option Form Filling' by two days, up to August 9, 2026, to enable students and candidates to exercise their preferences for the newly approved colleges.

Case Title: Shri Hari Educational Trust v. University of Mumbai [Writ Petition No. 9658 of 2026 & connected matters]

Click Here To Read/Download Order