The age- bar at law schools.
A PIL has been filed in the Bombay High Court challenging the Bar Council of India Rule (Rule 28) that states that no person shall be admitted to a 5 year LLB course if he or she is above the age of 20 and to a 3 year LLB course if above the age of 30.
Yasmin Tavaria, the petitioner who enrolled for a 3 year LLB course at the age of 42 and was denied admission states,
”commitment to the profession and age can never be inversely related to each other and that the age of a person has no bearing on the degree of commitment with which he or she would pursue a profession.”
IIM’s and other professional institutions are doing away with the age bar; perhaps it is time that law schools do away with them too.
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05/08/2010 was hearing date for case against Bar Counsil of India to revoke age limit in 3 year LLB degree course. Can anybody tell the outcome.
Amit Lama
The attempts by the Bar Council of India to limit the age for joining the LL.B. course are ridiculous. In late nineties, Delhi Bar Council had made a rule that people could not enroll as advocates after 40 years age. This was challenged in Delhi High Court and was quashed.
I don’t know why lawyers are so afraid of “others” encroaching upon their “territory”? Why do they want to build exclusive monopolistic empires? Is the present fleecing and loot of the public not enough?
I am an ex-professor of medicine having an LL.M. degree. I joined the Bar in 2001. My specialty is medico-legal cases. I have been pretty successful and am fulfilling a need which is beyond an ordinary advocate. So many people keep on sending me medico-legal queries and I keep on replying to them on the internet as a part of service to the society.
What I am doing in law related to medicine can be done by others as regards law related to engineering, commerce and other specialised fields. The interdisciplinary growth of law needs to be encouraged. I deplore the stand of the BCI.
Dr. M C Gupta, MD, LL.M.
Medico-legal consultant and Advocate
The same would be true of
Amit,
I’m not sure about the status about that particular case, but a governmental order prescribing a similar age bar in Andhra Pradesh was quashed by the AP High Court earlier this year:
http://www.minglebox.com/article/ritad5930/lawcet-will-have-no-age-bar/data-0001-fdbffe7327a4877c0127a9e16e5145b6
Can any one confirm the status of case. This year admission are nearly closed. Intrested person has to wait one more year if Suprem Court decsion is pending.
[...] The age bar to study law at the University has taken a new turn with the Supreme Court transferring the 60 odd cases in various high courts to itself. The BCI thinks that having people at a young age to join a law college would help it maintain good standards in legal education. Old people wouldnt do any good. One must actually laud the commitment of the BCI towards maintaining quality legal education especially with their staunch support of the bar exam to maintain quality of advocates. I think they believe that if you’re above 25 when you join a law college, you can’t make a good advocate. This blog has been following this case in the Bombay High Court here. [...]
The Bar Councils recent resolution (April 2010) of conducting an All India text before grantind lincene to practice(Sanad) is another blatant attempt by the select group to indirectly restrict the entrans of new advocates which may restrict the monopoly of some.
The Bar Councils is formed with an intention to improve the standard of Legal education, and to provide legal reforms. Hardly it has taken any step towards that angle.
The BCIhave prescribed 3rs and 5yrs Law course and also set the percntage of marks forqualifying and the courses are conductedby Universities in strict adaherence of such proceadures. The Bar councils has also conducts investigations as sto whether the courses are conducted i accordance with such proceadures and whter the standard is maitained.
Then where is the need to prescribe entrance exam of those graduates to decide the bench mark for granting licence to Practise( sanad).
This resolution of Bar counsil is an perversive action and not born out of good intention and beyond its jurisiction besides being unconsititutional
Hello,
BCI is making a mokery of itself by so called “quality-improvement” process by making 30 years max age limit for 3 year LLB. I have the following reasons;
1. India is laging further behind in solving IPR related cases. The reason is that to understand IPR, the lawyers and the judges have to be competent technically to understand. This is lacking severely, when India is making huge contributions in WIPO and recently India is a signatory to TRIPS. In order to solve this there is a requirement of technical persons with expertise to take up law so that these IPR related cases can be handeled.
2. BCI has a list of foreign universities/Institutes which accord law degrees which are recognised by the BCI. The foreign applicant who holds this degree can write a qualifying exam in India and get him registered in Bar council. These foreign universities/institutes do not have age barrier for doing these degree courses. According to University of Buckingham, London, any matured individual above the age of 25 can take up this course. When BCI recognises those degrees, our own citizens are barred from studying the law of the land. What Irony is this ????
3. If quality is a concern, the BCI should set a year say from 2020 etc from which the age barrier will come into force. This time limit will help the technical knowledge to be gained by the lawers or technical experts to take up law.
I am a successful MNC employee with 20 years experience and i am in process of switching careers to practicing law in the next few years. I have completed LLB 1st year and getting to 2/3 year and by 2011/2012 i plan the switch. I am not planning this after retirement, since i am 41 years of age today.
The decision seems strange, more so, it is claimed to maintain quality of professionals. I totally disagree and have a very different opinion on how the Legal profession and process needs to speed up and transform to make the country more workable / livable for our fellow country men.
And surprisingly, there is no botheration about the majority of students who actually undertake the LLB as a side qualification ( the CA and Company Secretary) students and never even attend class or study, except to pass exams.
Just wanted to add this as food for thought…………….
As I am an aspiring applicant for admission in law to acquired a solid back up in my work as all India claims manager in shipping, I am anxiously awaiting the decision of the High Court.
I take this opportunity to appreciate Mr.Vaswani for taking up the cudgel on behalf of the aggrieved and wish you all success.
regards
puran thapa
[...] Mr Mahesh Vaswani has been kind enough to send us a copy of the writ petitions filed before the Bombay High Court challenging the Age bar for entering into Law Schools. This blog has earlier talked about this case here. [...]
For those who need correct info on the age bar on Law studies, may get in touch with me.
I am Advocate Mahesh Vaswani who has filed a Writ Petition in the Bombay High Court on behalf of my client Shabnam Amin Mulani, a lady cop of Mumbai Police against the newly imposed age restrictions in legal education. The matter is kept for hearing on the 17th June 2009.
My email id is mavaswani@gmail.com
The above post has some incorrect elements. Yasmeen Tavaria, the petitioner is a practising lawyer and she’s aged 52 according to news reports and hasnt been denied admission.
Further to the above PIL Shabnam Mulani from Mumbai has also filed a PIL against the same on being denied admission on the basis of her age which is more than 30.
Such age restricting rulings have been a trend of various Bar Councils. I have a post detailing the same at the url below :
http://my23cents.blogspot.com/2009/04/history-of-abc.html
Regards
Please let me know if anybody knows the email address of Ms. Yasmin Tavaria. I think we need to show our solidarity, as the decision taken by the Bar council is not only artibitrary, unconstitutional, but also taken without any public discussion, while the same is affecting most of the public.