CJI Slams Bar Council Over NALSAR Row! ‘Who Are They to Interfere? It’s Between Me and My Students!’

In an extraordinary courtroom intervention, Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant came out strongly in support of law students at NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad, firmly telling the Bar Council of India (BCI) that it had no authority to interfere or jeopardize young careers. Responding to an unprecedented circular issued by the BCI that temporarily banned the entire 2026 graduating batch of NALSAR from enrolling as advocates across the country, the CJI questioned the regulator's aggressive overreach, declaring that students have every right to raise their voices lawfully and that the matter was purely a direct dialogue between him and the students.

The entire controversy erupted after a group of NALSAR students wrote to their administration objecting to inviting CJI Surya Kant as the chief guest for their upcoming convocation. The students had expressed dissatisfaction over oral remarks made during a recent Supreme Court hearing on alleged police action against protesters. Outraged by the protest against the country's highest judicial office, the Bar Council of India rushed to penalize the law graduates by freezing their professional bar enrolments and ordering a disciplinary inquiry to identify who organized the campaign.

However, following massive outrage from the legal community, including senior lawyers and the Supreme Court Bar Association who called the ban illegal and arbitrary, the BCI quickly revoked the blanket enrolment restriction. When the matter was brought before the Supreme Court, CJI Surya Kant recalled his own active student days and emphasized that peaceful questioning is part of campus life. The apex court issued a formal notice to the BCI and ordered that no punitive or coercive action whatsoever be taken against any student or faculty member of NALSAR.