Bar Council of India’s discriminatory age cap on observing of regulation is nonsensical.

The Supreme Court has requested the Bar Council of India to rethink its rule on an age restriction for admission into regulation courses. The courtroom said that there is no age to collect education.

Three years ago, the Bar Council of India (BCI) decided to impose an ageist bar on the study of regulation. Under this nonsensical norm, handiest the ones below 20 years of age have been eligible to be admitted for the 5-yr incorporated LLB programme and people underneath 30 years for the 3-12 months publish graduate LLB programme. The remember is now indexed inside the court for this week.

Problems with age bar
Age bars are intricate for greater motives than one. First, the restriction is arbitrary. Why 20? Why now not 21 or 25 for that remember? Indeed, the sheer arbitrariness is evidenced through the truth that the BCI itself yo-yoed on this be counted. It first indicated that the cut-off was 20 years for the 5-12 months BA LLB direction. And, then modified it to 22 for no rhyme or cause.

Second and extra egregious, age bars discriminate towards those hailing from underprivileged backgrounds.

Also examine: Bar Council of India asks CJI Dipak Misra now not to take up any publish-retirement process from government

Consider the case of Michael Sam, a homeless orphan who undertook the odds process to pay for food and lodging. Despite unfavourable occasions, he observed an ardour for mastering and saved sufficient money to get training. We located him by using risk and enrolled him into our schooling programme at IDIA (Increasing Diversity by using Increasing Access to Legal Education), a company that seeks to empower marginalized groups thru legal education.

We knew Michael could make a tremendous lawyer. Unfortunately, when we carried out on his behalf for CLAT and different law entrance checks, we were advised that he become too old for college! We at once filed an intervention petition in the Supreme Court, wherein aside from fashionable pleadings, we defined his ache via a poignant poem, some bits of which might be excerpted below: