High court stays bar council circular imposing age limit for law courses 1,500 changes based on your suggestions likely in draft DP

In a major reprieve for aspiring law students, the Bombay high court on Friday stayed a circular issued by the Bar Council of India (BCI), prescribing different upper-age limits for 3-year and 5-year law courses.

“How can such restrictions be imposed,” the division bench of Chief Justice Manjula Chellur and justice Girish Kulkarni sought to know. “In our view, acquiring knowledge is a fundamental right,” the bench added, while staying the BCI circular of September 17, 2016.

The circular revived an old clause in Legal Practice Rules, 2008, prescribing the upper age limit of 30 years for three-year law courses for general category students and 35 years for students belonging to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other backward classes. It has also prescribed upper age limit of 20 years (22 years for SC, STs and OBCs) for the five-year law course.

“A person may just want to acquire law and may not want to practice as a lawyer,” the bench said, after the counsel for BCI pointed out that the upper-age limit introduced by the circular was for the purpose of maintaining quality and standard in legal practice.

The revised draft Development Plan (DP) 2034 — the city’s blueprint for the next two decades — drafted by the civic body, is set to see changes, as recommended by the sixmember planning committee appointed for hearing the suggestions and objections put forth by citizens. After the hearings were completed last month, the planning committee accepted around 1,500 suggestions and objections and is likely to recommend these changes in their report, which will be submitted to the new general body of corporators after March.

Issues such as an incorrectly marked coastal road and the Ghatkopar-Mulund Link Road are likely to be rectified on the recommendation of the planning committee. Also, the correction of mistakes such as widening of roads that do not need to be widened, are likely to be considered. The planning committee is also keen on keeping open spaces untouched and corrections have been proposed wherever errors were pointed out by citizens, said civic officials.