There is relief news for aspirants who wish to study law. The Bar Council of India (BCI) has abolished the maximum age limit for admission to three-year and five-year law courses. Now candidates of any age can take admission in LLB and Integrated Law courses. On Friday, the BCI informed the Supreme Court of its decision. This will benefit the candidates who could not study law due to age limit. After this decision, the Supreme Court has also disposed of the petition challenging the age limit.
The General Council of the Bar Council of India has decided to remove the upper age limit for admission to three-year LLB and five-year integrated law courses. The age of the candidates for admission to both these courses was fixed earlier. Due to this ban, many older candidates could not study law. Now after the new decision candidates of any age can apply for admission in these courses.
What was the maximum age limit earlier?
As per the old BCI rules, the maximum age limit for General category candidates in the five-year integrated law course was fixed at 20 years. At the same time, the maximum age was kept at 22 years with a relaxation of two years for Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST) and Backward Class candidates. Apart from this, the maximum age for admission to the three-year LLB course was fixed at 45 years. Now BCI has removed all these restrictions.
The 2016 circular was challenged in the Supreme Court.
The BCI issued a circular in the year 2016 re-enacting Rule 28 of Schedule 3 of the Legal Education Rules, 2008. This rule fixed the age limit for admission to law courses. Rishabh Duggal challenged this decision in the Supreme Court. In March 2017, the Supreme Court stayed the BCI’s decision to fix the age limit. Since then the legal process was going on in this matter.
The Supreme Court disposed of the petition
On September 25, the Supreme Court had asked the BCI whether it was willing to remove the maximum age requirement for admission to the five-year integrated law course. After this, Advocate Radhika Gautam appearing for BCI on Friday told the court that the General Council has decided to remove the age limit.
