New Delhi: The Bar Council of India (BCI) has officially withdrawn its three-year moratorium on the establishment of new law colleges across the country, a decision that was communicated to the Supreme Court on Monday. The move effectively reopens the doors for educational institutions to apply for law courses starting from the 2025-26 academic session.
The withdrawal came during the hearing of a petition filed by the Vocational Education Foundation Society and another petitioner, Jatin Sharma. Both had challenged the BCI’s 2025 notification, which imposed a blanket ban on new legal centers for three years. BCI counsel Radhika Gautam informed a Bench comprising Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta that the regulatory body had decided to retract the moratorium. Consequently, the top court disposed of the petitions, allowing the applicants to move forward with their proposals.
The petitioners had argued that the moratorium was arbitrary and disproportionate, claiming it violated fundamental rights under Articles 14, 19(1)(g), and 21 of the Constitution. They contended that a complete freeze on new colleges deprived deserving aspirants of legal education and unfairly penalized institutions that met all necessary criteria. Furthermore, they emphasized that new law colleges should be encouraged in underserved and tribal districts to bridge regional disparities.
The BCI had originally implemented the moratorium to curb the “mushrooming” of substandard law institutions and to safeguard the integrity of legal education. At the time of the ban, the Council expressed concerns over declining standards, commercialization, and a persistent shortage of qualified faculty. While exceptions were initially made for National Law Universities proposed by state governments, the general freeze was intended to allow the BCI to focus on auditing and improving existing institutions.
With the moratorium now lifted, the BCI is expected to shift back to a model of region-specific regulatory measures. This change follows a legal history of similar attempts; a 2019 moratorium was previously struck down by the Punjab and Haryana High Court in 2020. The current withdrawal ensures that genuine educational proposals will again be considered, provided they meet the BCI’s stringent infrastructure and faculty requirements.
