Allahabad High Court raps BCI for delaying college's application seeking approval for 5-year law course

The Allahabad High Court recently said that the Bar Council of India (BCI) must not delay its decision on applications filed by law colleges for approval to start 5-year law courses in their institutions [Dr. Hari Shanker Mishra Law College v. Bar Council of India and 3 Others]..Justice Abdesh Kumar Chaudhary said that the BCI’s powers to monitor and upgrade the standards of legal education do not extend to creating an unintended embargo on institutional expansion from a 3-year course to 5-years course, due to procedural delays. “Forcing a functional college to waste an entire academic year for a multi-year course extension, simply because an inspection team could not schedule a visit due to whatever reasons, constitutes a manifest arbitrariness on the part of the regulatory council,” the Court said.It added that the BCI is under a statutory obligation to process the applications within a reasonable period..The Court was hearing a petition moved by Dr Hari Shanker Mishra Law College for consideration of its application to run the 5-year law course. The College, affiliated with Lucknow University, has been running a 3-year LL.B. course since 2012. The University granted granted the college a no objection certificate (NOC) in 2021 for the 5-year course and also granted affiliation for the course in January this year. The College then moved an application in February for BCI approval to start the course from the academic session 2026-27.However, counsel representing the College said that despite having the requisite infrastructure and facility in place for conducting the 5-year integrated law course, the BCI was yet to carry out the inspection required to approve its application. In response, the BCI said that around 1,250 colleges have filed applications to start the 5-year integrated law course and thus it was unable to complete the process within the expected time frame. It assured the Court that the College’s application will be proceeded in accordance with law and a decision would be taken within 3 months..The Court noted that the academic session 2026-27 already commenced in July and thus no effective relief could now be granted to the College for this session.It observed that forcing a functional college to waste an entire academic year for a multi-year course extension, simply because an inspection team could not schedule a visit, constitutes manifest arbitrariness on the part of the regulatory body.The Court also noted,“Since, the petitioner's institution presumably must have been verified by the BCI, albeit for the 3-years course, this court fails to understand as to why the regulatory council has taken its own sweet time in processing the Application of the petitioner filed in February, 2026 and as a matter of fact has not even been able to constitute an inspection team to inspect the Petitioner-College, till date.".The Court refused to accept the argument that there was a delay due to the huge number of applications received for approval in the present session. It said since the College already holds a valid 'Consent of Affiliation' or inspection approval from its parent University for the current academic session, the BCI cannot legally claim complete ignorance of the campus's ground reality to stall the 5-year course. “The failure to conduct a physical inspection is entirely an administrative omission on the part of the Bar Council of India, and a well-settled principle of law dictates that the act or omission of a regulatory body shall prejudice no citizen or compliant institution."The Court directed the BCI to constitute an inspection committee for inspection of the College and to consider its application for grant of approval for commencing the 5-year course for the academic session 2027–2028.“The entire exercise shall be completed expeditiously, within a period of three months from the date of production of a certified copy of this order before the competent authority of the Bar Council of India,” ordered the Court..Advocate Rajesh Kumar Srivastava appeared for the petitioner.Advocate Shailesh Kumar Pathak appeared for BCI.Advocate Savitra Vardhan Singh represented Lucknow University..[Read Judgment]