[Breaking]: Bar Council of India wants to conduct CLAT also!

While the legal fraternity has long been sceptical about the functioning of Bar Council of India (BCI) and has raised serious concerns about its effectiveness as a regulator of legal profession, the BCI itself seems undeterred by such question marks..It has now filed its counter affidavit in the PIL petition filed by academician Shamnad Basheer concerning the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT)..In its response filed through advocate AK Prasad, the BCI has sought permission to conduct CLAT, through its Legal Education Committee. Currently, the CLAT is being conducted by different National Law Universities on a rotational basis..The BCI, it its counter affidavit, has stated that the Advocates Act empowers it to regulate standards of legal education and to inspect and recognize universities imparting legal education..“The answering respondent is expressly and specifically empowered under the act to regulate the legal education in the country under Sections 7 and 49 of the Act..From the reading of the aforesaid provisions, it is evident that the Answering respondent has been conferred sole responsibility under the statute for regulating legal education in the country.”.The counter further states that a Legal Education Committee has been constituted by BCI as per Section 10(2)(b) of the Act to regulate legal education..Stating that the BCI “has the experience of conducting similar examination ie. AIBE successfully in most fair and transparent manner”, it has contended that,.“it has the mechanism in place to conduct even the entrance/admission test for law courses for all institutions imparting legal education in the country through a common admission test.”.It has, thus, sought permission to constitute a body of experts through its Legal Education Committee to hold CLAT..It has also given some finer details on how it proposes to hold the CLAT..Interestingly, the BCI has also stated in its response that the next AIBE, which is to be held in November-December 2016, will be held prior to the enrolment of advocates in compliance with the judgment of the Constitution Bench of Supreme Court..Shamnad Basheer had filed the PIL in 2015 seeking constitution of a permanent body for conducting CLAT. In the petition filed through Advocate Liz Mathew and Gopal Sankaranarayan, Basheer had alleged violation of Article 14 and Article 21 on the ground that that the mode and manner of conduct of CLAT is resulting in repeated violation of the fundamental rights of thousands of prospective law students. Senior Advocate KK Venugopal had appeared for Basheer in the matter..The Court had issued notice to the Centre, BCI and RGNUL in September 2015. The BCI had, however, failed to respond in the matter for more than a year whereupon the Court had imposed costs of Rs. 25,000 on BCI on August 12 this year..Read the counter affidavit filed by BCI below.