BCI gives AIBE XIX candidates waiting for law degrees 1 year to submit enrolment certificate

The Bar Council of India (BCI) has allowed a 1-year window for enrolment certificate submission by All India Bar Examination IX (AIBE IX) candidates who were yet to receive their law degrees when they sat for the exam.

In a letter issued to all state bar councils, the BCI said that its General Council had taken up candidates' requests for more time to submit enrolment certificates. These certificates are ordinarily due within 6 months of the AIBE XIX result, under BCI's undertaking-based eligibility framework.

Normally, a law graduate enrols with a state bar council before appearing for AIBE. The undertaking-based eligibility framework is an exception. It lets final-year students, as well as those who had finished their exams but not yet received their degree, sit for AIBE first on an undertaking that they will complete enrolment and submit the certificate afterward.

The framework spans four categories: final-year or final-semester students without backlogs (Category 1); candidates who had cleared their final semester exams and were awaiting the results (Category 2); unenrolled law graduates who had obtained or needed to obtain their LL.B. (Category 3); and employed graduates who had not enrolled, or had surrendered enrolment on taking employment (Category 4).

The 6-month rule remains the norm. Only Categories 1 and 2 may get a 1-year outer limit and only where the delay is due to non-declaration of results, non-issuance of marksheets or degree certificates, or procedural delay despite applying on time.

The benefit is not automatic. Candidates must show that the delay was not due to their own negligence, omission, or misrepresentation.

Category 3 candidates who already held their degree or marksheet remain bound by the 6-month window, as do Category 4 candidates, for whom BCI excluded any extension outright. The 1-year period is reckoned only from the AIBE XIX result date, not from any later document's issuance.

BCI added that state bar councils and universities bear no liability over such delays and that the resolution waives no eligibility or statutory requirement. The same framework, it said, will apply prospectively from AIBE XX and all subsequent exams, unless modified.

[Read BCI Letter]