BCI's Three-Year Ban on New Colleges: Supreme Court Seeks BCI Response on Another Plea

The Bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta issued notice in the matter and listed it for further hearing on January 30, 2026.

The petition has been filed by Vocation Education Foundation, which has questioned both the constitutional validity of the moratorium and the BCI’s inaction in processing its application for approval to start law courses.

The writ petition filed through AoR Vivek Jain assails the Rules of Legal Education–Moratorium (Three-Year Moratorium) with respect to Centres of Legal Education, 2025, notified on August 13, 2025, contending that the blanket ban is arbitrary, unreasonable and violative of Articles 14, 19(1)(g) and 21 of the Constitution.

The petitioner pointed out that the impugned moratorium is already under challenge before the Supreme Court in Jatin Sharma v. Bar Council of India & Ors., W.P. (C) No. 799 of 2025, in which notice was issued on August 22, 2025 and the matter is still pending.

Apart from challenging the moratorium, the petition also seeks directions to the BCI to consider the petitioner’s representation dated December 22, 2025, seeking issuance of a new login ID and password on the BCI portal to enable submission of its online application for approval of BA-LLB (five-year) and LLB (three-year) courses for the academic session 2026–27.

According to the petitioner, a similar request had been made on February 12, 2025 for the 2025–26 academic year, but the BCI failed to act upon it. As the online portal was never opened, the petitioner claims it was prevented from even submitting an application to keep it pending. Six months later, on August 13, 2025, the BCI imposed the impugned moratorium, which provides an exemption for pending applications. The petitioner argued that it was unjustly denied the benefit of this exemption solely due to the BCI’s inaction.

The petition states that the institution has complied with all statutory and regulatory requirements. The petitioner society had resolved in December 2024 to commence law courses under Chaudhary Charan Singh University, Meerut, and had allocated five acres of land along with a fully constructed academic block. It obtained a No Objection Certificate from the University on February 9, 2025 after approval from the State Government, and was granted affiliation following inspection on May 13, 2025. For the academic year 2026–27, the University issued a letter of no objection on December 19, 2025 and allotted a college code the next day.

Challenging the moratorium, the petitioner contended that a complete ban on new law colleges does not constitute a reasonable restriction under Article 19(6) and fails the test of proportionality. It argued that quality concerns in legal education cannot justify freezing new institutions, particularly when regulatory shortcomings exist in monitoring existing colleges.

Reliance was placed on the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s 2020 judgment in Chandigarh Education Society v. Bar Council of India, which struck down a similar three-year moratorium imposed by the BCI as unconstitutional. The High Court had held that failure to enforce standards cannot be used as a pretext to extinguish the fundamental right to establish educational institutions.

The petitioner also argued that the Advocates Act, 1961 does not confer any power on the BCI to impose a moratorium, rendering the impugned rules ultra vires. It further alleged violation of Article 14, stating that the moratorium treats unequals equally by making no distinction between institutions lacking infrastructure and those already inspected and approved by affiliating universities.