Recently, the Bar Council of India has brought the law into picture for the law graduates to clear an entrance exam before getting into litigation after the attainment of the required degree. The idea has been well supported in the light of a reformatory step towards the litigation and practice area. The purpose behind the proposal has been to improve the quality of the litigants, and to filter the law practitioners before they could actually get on to the field.
However, the backside of the coin has remained untouched as of now. A plain reading to the idea gives a viable impression about the future of law and litigants. Legal reforms especially with regard to the quality of lawyers have been a dream yet to be achieved. This is due to old-existing legal educational system in India wherein obtaining legal education was thought to be nothing more than a mere degree. This lowered down the quality of legal education and produced the less-efficient lawyers as anyone with a law degree could go and practice law before the court. Hence, it is now the need of the hour to curb such practice and bring some reformatory changes in the present system. Therefore, the proposal was given a positive way.
But, at the same time a question is to be posed as to would an entrance exam after the completion of the degree not be violating the right to livelihood of the applicants? Would it not violate the right to carry on trade and profession of a law graduate, for whom, law-practice is the foremost area of profession?
It is appreciable that an idea has been generated to make feasible opportunities for those who make it to the entrance, but what about those who could not make it to the exam? Is it justified to restrain the law students from getting into a profession which they had obtained the degree solely for? Will it not result in gross violation of their right to practice a profession? At such point of time, for those who could not get through the entrance, the entire education and the degree would prove to be useless. Furthermore, it is to be noted down that law is an area wherein most of the law graduates take up litigation as their primary choice of profession. Rejection of a graduate as a law practitioner might leave them completely jobless.
If only the improvement in quality of the lawyers is something what is aimed at, then an improvement is to be made in the quality of the law students itself, which can be brought by introducing entrance exams at the time of the admission to the law schools or law colleges, but after the conferment of the law degree and then refusing a graduate from even making use of it is not just and reasonable. The entry at the undergraduate level itself could have sufficed. Why even admitting the students in a law college and then rejecting them as the law practitioners?
Also, no attempt is being made to support the non-existence of the entrance exam, what is suggested is an entry level exam at the time of the admissions itself, at least a ‘wannabe’ graduate would be able to realize his future legal potentials and prospects with regard to the profession before the admission which they would realize otherwise later on, when nothing can be done!!!
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devyani
1 year ago
wow mr. bhavtosh. u seems to be very intellectual by writing and by photograph both. good, intelligible write up. its loaded with ideas rather bombardment of words.
congrates and best wishes dear
Gautam Jayasurya
1 year ago
Great start Bhavtosh.
Happy to see you carving your own niche.
Don't give up writing.
Bhavtosh
1 year ago
Thanks a ton people, would write more,soon, njoy
ajaykumar
1 year ago
wonderful article really its a novel idea nobody was thinking on this aspect of coin .keep it up my best wishes are with you
shivendra
1 year ago
very well said and rightly so….when Medical council of India proposed same exam for students of foreign medical degrees the Supreme court ruled that th rule will apply to those students who enter the education after the effect of rule and not those who are already into studies……..i think same effect will be held here and rule for exam will be made applicable from the starting batch of 2010-11 not passing out batch of this yr only someone needs to writ SC
Bhavtosh
1 year ago
yes that is well taken. but what i am trying to put forward is that even if a student enters the education after the enactment, his degree would prove to be useless if he does not clear the entrance exam.
why can't we introduce an entry level exam at the time of the admission to the respective law colleges itself?
in regard to the proposal of medical council, i wud say that the decision adopted by SC was quite justified since the conferment of degree is not taking place in India, being a foreign degree and hence certain restrictions can be put.
Subhadeep Saha
1 year ago
I feel its important and also a welcome step..but the matter is that isn't it unfair to impose the exam on the law graduates passing this yr only? Should not the lawyers who enrolled before 2010 also go through this screening? These questions need to be answered. Moreover, have the law graduates passing in 2009-10 got anything more in their curriculum or syllabus which their predecessors did not get? Is there any change in the system of court practice of lawyers who r to join the bar in 2010? If so, do they need any kind of special knowledge or expertise for the same? Most important thing is that will those lawyers passing the exam get any kind of remuneration or pension benefit etc. from the Govt.? If Govt. is treating the lawyers of 2010 separately from their predecessors then they must provide the former some benefits, isn't it? If after passing the exam still the 2010 lawyers are treated at per with earlier lawyers then the exam is nothing but a waste of time… Still searching for answers of my questions…
Bhavtosh
1 year ago
Exactly. I second your opinions and the questions you haven't found the answers of. frankly speaking, i too am looking for the same answers and i am totally clueless about them. however, coming to one of the questions raised by you, i wuld prefer to say that no doubt, by way of creation of an entrance exam, there must also be creation of some genuine distinction between the earlier class of lawyers and the newest one.
Also, talking about special knowledge and expertise, in india, we do not even have basic knowledge and expertise in legal profession, special expertise will be a much later stage. all this drama has been done only for the attainment of most basic and primary qualities of legal profession.
i shall get back to you, if required. thank you.
Subhadeep Saha
1 year ago
Thanks for ur concern bhavtosh…i think the BCI is doing timepass by conducting this exam…they got no work to do…the constitutional validity of this exam is undecided by the Hon'ble Supreme Court yet…moreover they don't have the capacity to conduct the exam on their own…they have given the contract to a private concern..they r charging exorbitant 1300/- for this exam…
I am not against the exam…I am just telling that if BCI is making distinction for the 2010 law graduates at the very beginning of their career, then they should also make distinction in other aspects of practice for the new lawyers.
Vikalp
9 months ago
Mr. Bhavtosh u say “law is an area wherein most of the law graduates take up litigation as their primary choice of profession.” Are you really sure of it??
You yourself even might be going for corporate sector than litigation. Other than that in reply of you writing i just have to say that – bar exam does not restrains law students from getting into a profession which they had obtained the degree solely for? because if they really have got that degree SOLELY for it, it wont be hard for them to clear such a small test.