AIBE twice a year, final-year students allowed: The Supreme Court just fixed a timing mess
The Bar Council of India (BCI) has told the Supreme Court it has finally put into rules what law students have been fighting for in court: An end to the “wait-and-waste-a-year” gap between law school and practice. The BCI said it has framed rules enabling final-year law students to take the All India Bar Examination (AIBE) and that the exam will now be conducted twice a year. In court, PTI reports, the BCI submitted: “The AIBE will be conducted twice a year and the last semester students of LLB will be allowed to sit for the exam subject to their clearing of the final exam.” The Bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta recorded the submission and disposed of the 2024 petition, finds the report.
A petition that was really about one stolen year
The case began with a simple complaint: Final-semester students were being stopped from taking the AIBE because they had not yet formally “graduated” on paper. The petition challenged the BCI notification that restrained final-year LLB students from appearing for the exam, PTI reports. The students’ argument was practical. A law graduate has to clear AIBE to enrol as a lawyer with a state bar council. If you miss the exam window, you don’t just miss an exam. You miss time — months, sometimes a full year — in the early phase of your career when every month matters.That is why the plea said the notification would lead to a loss of valuable time in pursuing professional careers if final-year students were barred from taking the test.
“Left in the lurch”: The court’s reasoning
The Supreme Court has been dealing with this issue long enough to know it was becoming an annual ritual. PTI reports that in 2024, the court had already passed interim orders allowing final-year students to appear in the AIBE held that year. And in 2023, the apex court had directed the BCI to frame rules to address this, PTI noted.Then came the blunt line that cut through the paperwork. On September 20, 2024, the top court directed the BCI to allow final-year students to appear for the AIBE, observing that final-year LLB students cannot be “left in the lurch” and warning that their one year would be wasted if they were not permitted to take the bar exam that year.This was the court acknowledging something regulators often forget: For students, a ‘technical restriction’ can become a real-life derailment.
What the BCI Rules 2026 change
According to the PTI report, the BCI’s counsel told the Supreme Court it has framed the BCI Rules 2026 to allow final-semester students to sit for the exam. The key phrase is the condition: Students can appear, but only “subject to” clearing their final exam, meaning the system is not lowering the bar, only moving the gate to a fairer place on the timeline.The Supreme Court had, on February 10, 2023, affirmed the BCI’s power to hold the AIBE. It had also accepted a suggestion of an amicus curiae for allowing final-semester law students to take the AIBE on production of appropriate proof of eligibility.And the court didn’t deal with this only in theory. PTI reports that it took note of submissions by advocates A Velan and Navpreet Kaur, appearing for nine LLB students including Nilay Rai of Delhi University, and allowed them to take the examination on November 24, 2024.The larger shift is this: With AIBE being held twice a year, missing one cycle should no longer mean being parked on the sidelines for an entire year. For final-year students, the path from classroom to courtroom becomes less of a waiting room.In short, this is not about making law ‘easier’. It is about stopping the system from wasting young professionals’ time — a reform that looks small in legal language but feels huge in student life.
