BCI proposes ₹22,500 enrolment fee, legal education reforms, professional development programmes

Along with a steep hike in advocate enrolment fees, the BCI proposes entrance tests, bar examinations and expanded oversight of law institutions.

Lawyers

Published on:

21 Jul 2026, 9:38 am

2 min read

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The Bar Council of India (BCI) recently proposed a 30-fold increase in the statutory enrolment fee for aspiring advocates from the current ₹750 to ₹22,500 under the Draft Advocates (Amendment) Bill, 2026 released for public consultation.

The draft proposes amending Section 24 of the Advocates Act, 1961 to increase the statutory enrolment fee payable by law graduates to ₹18,000 to the concerned State Bar Council and ₹4,500 to the Bar Council of India, taking the total enrolment fee to ₹22,500.

The BCI said that the revision had become necessary following the Supreme Court's decisions in Gaurav Kumar v Union of India and Pankaj Sinha v Bar Council of India. It noted that the existing statutory fee had remained unchanged since 1993 and no longer reflected the institutional responsibilities associated with enrolment.

According to the explanatory note accompanying the draft, the revised fee is intended to support verification of educational qualifications and identity, maintenance of physical and digital enrolment records, issuance of enrolment certificates, advocate welfare schemes such as insurance and mediclaim, professional development programmes, establishment of a National Legal Academy, and other institutional services.

The draft also proposes a concession for financially disadvantaged candidates belonging to the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and persons with benchmark disabilities, allowing them to pay only one-fourth of the prescribed enrolment fee.

Legal education reforms

The draft legislation also proposes empowering the BCI

to conduct an entrance examination or test for admission to law degree programmes;
to prescribe minimum qualifications for admission to law courses;
to frame rules for the All India Bar Examination;
to recognise legal education institutions and foreign law qualifications.

Additionally, the draft proposes expanding the Legal Education Committee from its current strength of 10 members to 25 members.

The reconstituted committee would include representatives from the Bar Council of India, former Supreme Court judges, sitting or former Chief Justices of High Courts, the Attorney General, the Solicitor General, the University Grants Commission, the Department of Legal Affairs, Vice-Chancellors of universities, senior advocates and legal academics.

"This wider composition can bring together the judiciary, Bar, Government and academia to develop stronger, practical and nationally consistent standards of legal education," said the BCI.

The draft further seeks to make continuing legal education a statutory function of both the BCI and State Bar Councils.

Professional development programmes may cover areas including constitutional practice, commercial and corporate law, arbitration, technology and artificial intelligence, cyber law, taxation, insolvency, international legal practice, and trial and appellate advocacy.

"The object is to expand the professional capabilities and opportunities of advocates. The provision should not be understood as imposing an unnecessary burden upon them," states the explanatory note.

Stakeholders, including state bar councils, bar associations, law universities, centres of legal education and law firms, have been invited to submit their suggestions to the BCI by 3 PM on July 31, 2026.