The Gujarat High Court Tuesday issued notices to the Bar Council of India (BCI), the state bar council and the state government for not allowing a law student to complete the third year of his degree course in law.A division bench of Chief Justice S.J. Mukhopadhaya and Justice Akil Kureshi issued notices to the respondents after Amjadkhan Pathan filed a petition challenging the BCI’s resolution which sought to deny him entry in the third year of LLB.
Pathan mentioned in the petition that he had completed his first year of LLB in 1998 and second year of LLB in 2001. When he applied for admission to third year LLB he was told by the authorities that as he did not hold minimum requirement of 45 percent in previous years he would have to obtain a masters degree with minimum 45 percent to get an admission in third year.
As per the instructions, Pathan obtained a masters degree (master of arts) with 47 percent marks in 2008. He sought admission in third year in VT Chowksi College in Baroda but was denied admission on the grounds that a new resolution passed by BCI required that he must have a minimum 45 percent marks in the aggregate of the first and second years of law for getting admission in the third year LLB.
Seeking clarification on the admission process of a law school, the Chief Justice asked the counsel for BCI, “what is your prescription for admission into a law college?”
The counsel for the petitioner, E.E. Saiyad and Sikandar Saiyad, maintained that the petitioner had already obtained admission in 1998 and wanted to complete the third year of his degree now. As per the authorities’ instructions, he had obtained a masters degree with more than 45 percent but he was still refused admission in 2008.
The bench asked the BCI’s counsel: “The question of law is that can you debar a student due to the subsequent policy of BCI which came into existence later to the first admission?”
Following this, the counsel for the respondents sought time to obtain instructions. The court granted two weeks’ time to the counsel and ordered them to file affidavits with their reply. The next hearing of the case is fixed for May 10
