By Jyotika Kalra
The aim of legal education is to produce quality lawyers and not to exclude the majority of law graduates. On a regular court day filled with arguments and paperwork, I overheard the chief justice of India say: “padho bhai” as he rejected a petition to lower the cut-off marks for the All India Bar Examination (AIBE).
With the cut-off a low 45 percent for general category students and 40 percent for SC/ST students, his reaction to the petition seemed logical. However, the point of contention remains the validity of taking this test and how it manages to filter out “advocates” from “students”. It discriminates against students by saying that they are “ineligible to practice in courts” even after completing 5-6 years of legal education from premier institutes across the country and abroad.
It is important to understand that competence and acumen are two very different things. A student’s legal acumen can be judged using a test, whereas, one’s competence as an advocate can only be judged after intensive exposure and equal opportunities to all, therefore making it an impossible metric to set.
Coming to legal acumen, the need for further assessment after long intensive study is a mockery of the Indian legal education system itself. Instead of setting roadblocks in the process of legal practice in the name of competence, the Bar Council of India must make attempts to refine Indian Legal Education. Ever since its introduction, the AIBE has stood out as a controversial and divisive component.
First conducted in 2011, the AIB Examination was conceived with the intention of ensuring competence of the basic requisite among law graduates prior to their practice of the study. However, the story of its execution and real time impact has been far from the ideal it set out to achieve.
AIBE is conducted after the candidate has completed his degree in law which is either five years or if done after graduation, six years. To add to that, there is no distance learning option for law. The reasoning given is that legal education can only be taught in classrooms and can’t be learnt by self-study, making accessibility another roadblock. There are other challenges also. After so many years in law school, students are still at the crossroads and are required to deposit an additional fee for appearing in the examination. Many law graduates from humble backgrounds can’t afford this.
Recently, the Madras High Court dismissed a plea seeking to reduce the application fee for the AIBE, which is conducted by the BCI. The decision was announced by the bench of Acting Chief Justice R Mahadevan and Justice GR Swaminathan. The AIBE imposes additional costs towards registration fees, study materials and potential expenses related to repeated attempts at the examination.
The standard of the examination was also brought up in A Mohandoss vs Registrar General on July 16, 2024, where Justice Surya Kant of the Supreme Court criticised the “low standard” of the AIBE. In fact in 2023, more than 50 percent of the candidates who appeared for the AIBE failed to pass it. Hence, it can be derived that in the present module, the AIBE alone has no potential to solve the Supreme Court’s concerns over “Quality Lawyers”. If the AIBE’s standards remain unsatisfactory despite such a high failure rate of law graduates, it suggests a need to reconsider the exam’s role.
If the goal is to improve the quality of lawyers, a more nuanced approach is needed rather than simply raising the bar of the AIBE to match the examination approach used in other countries. The solution lies in a multidimensional approach and not in a unilateral one. Legal education should be refined to focus on practical skills and problem-solving rather than memorising certain sections of law.
A lawyer’s competence requires various skills—drafting, being tech-savvy, intrapersonal relations, arguing cogently and hard work. This can be ensured only by re-visiting the syllabus of law and adding new topics dealing with technology, emotional intelligence and management. For a better understanding of the legal procedure in India, students must have exposure to the real-time cause and effect of the study they have opted for.
For instance, they must be encouraged to visit prisons where they can assist the inmates and the legally ignorant in filing appeals, getting certified copies of orders and assisting legal aid counsels. The selection of teachers should also be transparent and guided by the requirements of the present time. It is imperative to make the study of law more fitting with greater emphasis on a more practical approach to employment, say forensic (especially with the introduction of forensics in BNSS).
Simply on the grounds of a defined structural approach, one can draw a parallel between the legal profession and chartered accountancy, where the latter follows an inverted pyramid approach with self study holding the larger bracket, further checked by a foolproof examination system. Yet formal training, like articleship, is one of the integral qualifying factors.
The Bar Council of India and State Bar Councils can study the system of CA education and introduce the same in legal education. However, one can’t be ignorant of the fact that India is still rife with poverty and unemployment, which drive people into choosing professions out of need and not passion. The lack of diverse options and awareness of career options pushes people into boxes. Though basic education can be for all, professional education can’t, and the Indian mindset of acquiring a degree must modify itself into acquiring a skill.
If less time is invested in filtering out the unfit and invested instead in instilling a sense of dignity for labour, matters would change. Creating a barricade and filtering out students after completion of formal education is a waste of time, money and resources. This filter needs to be at the inception itself so that only those should study law are capable of becoming good lawyers. Further, filtering should be at the stage of passing the law exam.
The aim ultimately should be to produce quality lawyers and not to exclude the majority by a three-hour objective and multiple-choice exam.
—The writer is an Advocate-on-Record, Supreme Court of India, and Former Member, NHRC