From NALSAR to IIULER: Understanding BCI's Expanding Role

The third week of August 2026 has been a roller coaster with two Law Schools being the centre of attraction: NALSAR and IIULER. The authority behind both the controversies is the same, the Bar Council of India. The NALSAR row was, at its core, a dispute about whether the BCI's regulatory reach over enrolment can be used to police student speech at a law university. Another important aspect to ponder is, what is the BCI authorized to do in legal education, and where does regulation end? 

This article seeks to understand the scope of Bar Council of India’s powers and functions. It further seeks to dwell into the possibilities the Apex Court may ponder while dealing with the question of BCI running a Law School, while regulating them all. 

The NALSAR Controversy and BCI's Powers Under Scrutiny 

Last week, BCI Chairman Manan Kumar Mishra briefly halted enrolment for NALSAR University's 2026 graduating batch, after a section of students campaigned against inviting Chief Justice of India Surya Kant as convocation chief guest. The enrolment ban lasted about an hour before being withdrawn; an inquiry into the students who organised the campaign was announced and then dropped within hours. NALSAR's Vice-Chancellor had signalled the university would first examine whether the BCI possessed the statutory power to demand such an inquiry at all. The episode drew resignation demands from the Cockroach Janta Party and renewed scrutiny of Mishra's decade-long, seven-term tenure as Chairman, and a Supreme Court petition now seeks structural reforms at the BCI, including fixed tenures for office-bearers. 

The Bar Council of India: Functions and Powers 

The BCI is a statutory body constituted under the Advocates Act, 1961, tasked with regulating the legal profession and legal education across India. Its functions, spelt out in Section 7 of the Act and elaborated in the Bar Council of India Rules, include laying down standards of professional conduct, exercising disciplinary jurisdiction over advocates, maintaining the roll of advocates, and critically for this discussion, promoting legal education and setting its standards. The BCI Rules organize these functions through committees: an Executive Committee for administration and finance, a Disciplinary Committee for professional misconduct, and a Legal Education Committee specifically tasked with recommending standards, inspecting universities, and advising on recognition of law degrees. 

What Does the Advocates Act Actually Empower BCI to Do? 

Under Section 7, the BCI is empowered to recognize universities whose law degrees qualify graduates for enrolment as advocates, and for that purpose to visit and inspect them; to promote legal education and lay down its standards in consultation with universities and State Bar Councils; to organize seminars and publish journals; and to do other things "necessary for discharging" these functions.  

The Bar Council of India Rules mirror this: Part IV, the Legal Education Rules, and the Legal Education Committee's mandate under Part II, Chapter III, cast the Council as an inspector and standard-setter. Nowhere does the Act or the Rules grant the BCI power to found, own, or run a university itself. The enrolment-control power the BCI exercised against NALSAR flows from this same regulatory toolkit, it is a lever over who may practice, not a license to operate an institution. 

IIULER: BCI's Role Beyond Regulation 

BCI Trust and IIULER: Understanding the Institutional Structure 

The India International University of Legal Education and Research (IIULER), Goa, was established under Goa Act No. 16 of 2021 by an entity called the "Bar Council of India Trust - Pearl First", legally distinct from the statutory Council. Its foundation stone was laid by the Prime Minister in December 2021, and it was inaugurated in June 2022. Its governance draws heavily on BCI and judicial leadership: the Chief Justice of India is Visitor, Justices B.R. Gavai (now former CJI) and Surya Kant (the sitting CJI) are Member Trustees, and Justice P.S. Narasimha is Chancellor. 

Can the Regulator Also Be an Operator? The IIULER Question 

This is where the "connecting the dots" question becomes sharper. The statutory BCI regulates; the BCI Trust operates a university. On paper, these are separate legal persons: one a Parliament-created regulatory body, the other a state-legislated university run through a trust. But the trust carries the Council's name, and its trustees and chancellor are drawn from the same pool of BCI leadership and sitting or former CJIs who oversee, or have overseen, the very apparatus that inspects and recognizes law degrees nationwide. The BCI Rules do not prohibit this structure. They also were never written to anticipate it. 

Who Regulates the Regulator? The Conflict-of-Interest Question 

If IIULER's degrees are eventually placed before the BCI's own Legal Education Committee for recognition or renewal, the Council would effectively be evaluating an institution built and governed by the same ecosystem of people who sit atop the Council itself. No rule bars this outright, but it raises the same institutional question the NALSAR petition has put before the Supreme Court from another angle: how much unchecked, personality-driven power has accumulated in and around the BCI's leadership, and who is positioned to check it when regulator and regulated draw from the same circle. 

NALSAR and IIULER: Two Different Disputes, One Larger Question of BCI's Powers 

NALSAR and IIULER are, on their facts, unconnected controversies. One is about an enrolment ban tied to student protest, and the other is about institutional structure and governance. But both have connecting dots with the same underlying tension: a BCI leadership exercising expansive, sometimes personality-driven authority, with limited external checks. The bigger question that has surfaced after the matter was mentioned before the Supreme court is, If BCI Runs a Law University, Who Regulates BCI's Own Law University? 

The question the Apex Court may eventually have to decide, in substance if not in these exact words, is this: "From Regulating Law Colleges to Running One: Has BCI's Role Expanded Too Far?"