Why Bar Examination Of India 2010 Is In Trouble?

By
Shayam Prasad

Legal education in India is in urgent need of reforms. For many years legal education has been ignored making it inferior and non professionals. For some reason, the government of India (GOI) woke up from its long and persistent sleep and decided to give legal education a shot of life.

Law Ministry of India also became alive to the needs of legal and judicial reforms in India and Mr. Veerappa Moily showed his keen interest for bringing legal reforms in India.

The Supreme Court of India also participated in the discussion through Bar Council of India v. Bonnie FOI Law College and Ors.

Realising that legal education must now be rejuvenated, the Bar Council of India (BCI) also declared the introduction of bar examination in India. From here started the whole problem and as per the latest updates the decision to conduct bar exams in India started a legal quandary in India.

So what went wrong with the much needed legal reforms initiatives of India? I think the most prominent anomaly is although the intentions of BCI were benign yet they were executed in an unplanned, haste and unprepared manner. The BCI must appreciate that maintaining the quality of legal education in India is no more a passive role but requires active and collaborative acts on its part.

Till now maintaining the legal education standards by BCI is an “internal and closed function”. The BCI has not tied up with people and institutions that can bring quality and effectiveness to legal education in India. The BCI must approach the legal education with an open mind and collaborative approach. The BCI also is not willing to use technology for bringing transparent and effective legal reforms.

A very good option could have been making necessary arrangements and collaboration with techno-legal law firms like Perry4Law. Why BCI has not approached and tied up with law firms is still not clear. Online platforms like Lawyers Training Blog show clearly what technology in general and law firms like Perry4Law in particular can offer for legal and judicial reforms in India.

The BCI must urgently change its role from a closely held body to collaborative and open body. It has many ambitious projects in its contemplation but it must understand that no matter howsoever good the intentions may be they are useless in the absence of proper planning and decision making.