₹22,500 to wear the white band?

The Bar Council of India (BCI) on July 18 proposed an amendment to the Advocates Act, 1961. The proposed draft aims to strengthen the organised Bar and create new opportunities for the legal profession. Ironically, this attempt may create hurdles for aspiring lawyers.

Under the heading “VI. Enrolment fee and important protection for deserving categories”, the proposed amendment seeks to increase the enrolment fee by 30 times from ₹750 to ₹22,500. Furthermore, BCI invited all the stakeholders to furnish their suggestions before July 31.

For most law graduates, particularly those aspiring to build a career in litigation, the professional journey does not begin with a lucrative salary. Instead, it begins with substantial financial obligations. Unlike many other professions, where graduates are offered structured employment and stable remuneration from the outset, aspiring litigators often spend their initial years working under senior advocates/advocates with modest stipends or, in many cases, without any remuneration at all.

Justice R Banumathi in S Seshachalam v. Chairman, Bar Council of Tamil Nadu had opined that young law graduates seeking to enter litigation begin with a position of disadvantage. In the initial years of practice, young graduates often work for long hours with minimal pay. It is only after years of hard work and slogging that some of the fortunate lawyers are able to make a name for themselves and achieve success in the profession.

The financial challenges faced by a law student doesn’t begin at the point of enrolment. Rather, they persist throughout the course of legal education. A considerable number of students relocate from small towns and remote regions to metropolitan cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, or Hyderabad to pursue quality legal education. This transition entails substantial expenditure on accommodation, transportation, food and other living expenses, all of which are considerably higher in Tier-I cities. Additionally, the cost of studying at India's top law institutions remains prohibitively high for many deserving candidates. For instance, the annual fee for the five-year B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) programme at the National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bengaluru, is approximately ₹4.5 lakh, excluding personal living expenses.

However, securing admission to a National Law University (NLU) does not necessarily guarantee access to satisfactory employment. Although various government welfare schemes and scholarship programmes have considerably improved access to legal education by covering a substantial portion of tuition fees for deserving students, they do not eliminate the overall financial burden. In Gaurav Kumar vs. Union of India, the Supreme Court observed that the students are also expected and sometimes mandated to partake in internships, research work and co-curricular and extra-curricular activities. Partaking in these activities entails additional expenses. Consequently, for many talented students, the first barrier to pursuing a legal career arises from the very first day. Even after earning admission through a rigorous selection process, they are often compelled to reconsider their aspirations due to the overwhelming financial burden.

Furthermore, Rule 25, Part IV of the BCI Rules of Legal Education 2008 mandates that a registered student must complete 12 weeks for 3-year course and 20 weeks for 5-year course of internship in various forums. While these internships are indispensable for acquiring practical legal skills and professional exposure, they often impose a significant financial burden on students. A large proportion of meaningful internship opportunities are concentrated in metropolitan cities, compelling students from smaller towns and rural areas to relocate temporarily. The cost of accommodation, transportation, food, and other living expenses during these internships can easily average up to ₹25,000 per month. Since most of these internships are unpaid, students have to bear these expenses on their own or from family resources.

The proposed amendment may, therefore, become a decisive financial barrier for aspiring advocates, specifically, from rural area or economically weaker sections. In Ravinder Kumar Dhariwal vs. Union of India, the Supreme Court held that substantive equality is aimed at producing equality of outcomes through different modes of affirmative action. The purpose of the Advocates Act is to create an inclusive Bar and cannot be defeated by exclusionary conditions that seek to create social and economic barriers. The BCI and state bar councils (SBCs) have a collective responsibility to ensure greater representation of persons from marginalised communities in the legal profession.

In Gaurav Kumar v. Union of India, the petitioner challenged the constitutional validity of the exorbitant enrolment fees charged by various SBCs across the country, alleging that they are more than the enrolment fees prescribed under Section 24(1)(f) of the Advocates Act 1961. The Court, while acknowledging the hardships and economic issues faced by aspiring lawyers, observed as follows:

“102. … The SBCs cannot have unbridled powers to charge any fees given the express legislative policy under Section 24(1)(f). Imposing excessive financial burdens on young law graduates at the time of enrolment causes economic hardships, especially for those belonging to the marginalized and economically weaker sections of the society. Therefore, the current enrolment fee structure charged by the SBCs is unreasonable and infringes Article 19(1)(g).”  

Subsequent to the Gaurav Kumar decision, the Court in Pankaj Sinha v. Bar Council of India & Ors, dealt with two issues - adequate representation of advocates with special abilities in SBC elections and the payment of nomination fee of ₹1,25,000 by advocates belonging to the specially-abled category. The Chairman of the BCI states that adequate representation shall be provided to advocates belonging to specially-abled categories and also agreed that advocates belonging to the specially-abled category are only required to pay a symbolic nomination fee of ₹15,000. The Court accepted the argument and directed the BCI to make the requisite amendment in the provisions, so as to ensure adequate representation in the upcoming elections of the SBCs. The Court also granted the liberty to BCI to approach the competent authority and may revise the existing enrolment fee structure. It neither determined the revised amount of the enrolment fee nor commented on the extent to which it could be increased. The relevant portion is reproduced hereunder:

“6. It goes without saying that the Bar Council of India may approach the competent authority for establishing a suitable mechanism for the revision of the enrolment fee.”

The proposed amendment appears to proceed on the premise that if the enrolment fee cannot be increased under the existing law, the provision itself will be amended to facilitate such an increase. Having failed to achieve the desired increase under the existing provision, and to circumvent the Gaurav Kumar decision, the present proposal seeks to amend the provision itself, thereby enabling the BCI to impose substantially higher enrolment fees. There is no dispute that the enrolment fee may require periodic revision. A reasonable increase, commensurate with inflation and the legitimate administrative expenses of the bar councils, would be both constitutionally understandable and justifiable. However, an increase from ₹750 to ₹22,500 is not merely a revision; it is an unprecedented escalation ultimately leading to a disproportional and unreasonable outcome.

It is not disputed that the BCI and the legislature possess the authority to propose and enact such an amendment. However, the exercise of that power must be accompanied by reasonableness and a legitimate expectation. While the competence to amend the law is unquestionable, the consequences of such an amendment cannot be overlooked. If implemented in its present form, the proposed increase in enrolment fees is likely to have far-reaching adverse implications on legal education by creating a substantial financial barrier for aspiring advocates, particularly those from economically weaker backgrounds. A reform intended to strengthen the legal profession should facilitate access to it, not make entry into the profession more unaffordable.

Atharva Gajankush is a 3^rd year student pursuing B.A. LL.B (Hons. in Adjudication & Justicing) at Maharashtra National Law University, Nagpur.