Hamza: Hi everyone, welcome to the Law and Other Things podcast. I, Hamza Khan. Along with my co-host Vivek Jadhav, will be handling today’s session. In today’s podcast, we are joined by Prakruthi Jain.Prakruthi is a graduate of 2025 from NALSAR. She is currently practicing law in Hyderabad and Delhi, and she appeared as a petitioner in person before the Honorable Supreme Court challenging the circular by the Bar Council of India. That had mandated all law schools and colleges to implement CCTV surveillance in classrooms, ensure biometric attendance, and had also asked for records of criminal antecedents of all students before they could be enrolled as advocates. Prakruthi had challenged that circular. And in today's podcast, we'll discuss what those circulars meant. Why is it important to, you know, kind of challenge those circulars? What is the kind of implications and ramifications of that circular and we’ll understand what her arguments against those circulars were and what the Supreme Court has held so far in that matter. Thank you, Prakruthi, for joining us today.
Prakruthi: Thank you, Hamza and Vivek, for calling me and I’ll be happy to discuss. Before you start off, I would just like to point out that the circulars don’t just mandate these checks, and these mandates are to be complied with before enrolment as advocates. They also mandate this compliance at the time of gaining admissions and at the time of issuance of mark sheet and final degrees. So, these two things are very important to understand the scope and ambit of the Bar Council of India's powers and what they are trying to do in these circulars.
Hamza: Alright, so I think kickstart the discussion. I would want to understand why we should care more about these circulars because the Bar Council is in the habit of issuing circulars frequently and you know, overseeing legal education is well within its mandate. And so, these kinds of procedural circulars are very common. The medical regulator, for example, also keeps issuing, you know, circulars for biometric attendance and these things in medical colleges. And so, this is something that appears to be something of a very normal thing to be done by the regulator. Why did you think that it was worthy of a challenge and why do you think our audience should care about the circular in the first place?
Prakruthi: It might seem like a routine regulatory step towards attaining. Better integrity and better standards of legal education, but it’s not as innocuous as it seems. What is exactly happening behind the scenes is The Bar Council’s power is only to regulate people who want to practice as lawyers or as advocates. It does not have the regulation power to regulate people who just want to study law and get a degree. Not all law students will end up enrolling as advocates. After my LLB, I might do an MBA. I might do something else and as you pointed out the parallel between the Medical Council, I don’t think there are there is any regulation which prevents somebody who’s even convicted of murder from getting their degree if they’ve completed all their requirements, course requirements. So, right to education being constrained by your criminal antecedents is something new. We have moved towards a reformative justice system where we constantly talk about getting more access to education for prisoners under trial, prisoners and convicts alike. Then
what is the rationale behind saying your mark sheet and degrees will be upheld if you have been convicted? Not just convicted. If you see the circular, it clubs all categories such as ongoing First, ongoing cases, convictions and acquittals in the same basket. So that amount of discretion that is being vested by the Bar Council with the Bar Council is not just. Unreasonable. It’s not just arbitrary, it’s also beyond the scope of its powers under the advocates.
Vivek: Okay, you mentioned that it’s beyond their powers, like who would be the competent authority to take up such legal educations? And there are various other concerns that the students have, like the legal quality is not upheld. They have certain other priorities that they appeal more than going to the college. How would that work?
Prakruthi: The quality of the legal education cannot be improved by the students attending classes I think that’s very clear. This is a reform that must. I’ve been taking all stakeholders in consultation together. Students attending classes is one part, but what is being taught? The relevancy of your legal education is you giving them employable skills which they can use after five years of graduation is something which is being missed completely. So, it’s very easy to pin the blame on students who are supposed to be the maybe the weakest stakeholder in the entire system. But that’s not correct in my opinion. Just pinning the blame on one stakeholder without addressing the failures caused by multiple stakeholders at multiple levels, institutional levels, that is the main issue. And all the lawyers and judges who today have passed out of the same law schools that we are studying in. So if there’s a problem with legal education, it is something which is deeper rooted, it’s not because of attendance.
Hamza: Right, so if we are to now go into their specific circular and understand its details. Could you elaborate on these three components of the circular that your petition focuses on? And what is mentioned specifically, just the content of the circular so that our audience knows what they’re dealing with before we move on to how are you challenging that circular in the first place?
Prakruthi: Okay, I’ll start with something which is the most important according to me is the mandate to install CCTV cameras inside classrooms. That is violative of not just a classroom is a public space as much as it is a private space where people can voice out their opinions freely. And you remember during COVID, my first year was during COVID and we had online classes. A lot of these classes were recorded. And professors were wary of even saying certain things, voicing out their opinions freely only because of that red dot on the screen that, oh, this is being recorded. What if I say, what if this is taken out of context, right? So that kind of intrusion into a space where you’re supposed to promote healthy discussion and see this in context with what’s happening outside these law schools or any, any college for that matter. We don’t have an atmosphere where dissent is appreciated or celebrated. We live in an atmosphere where there is constant control over what is being taught. The syllabus for grade 4th and 5th students has been changed recently. NCERT has changed its syllabus. So, you are trying to, and universities, especially our university NALSAR professors have freedom to teach whatever they want. I don’t think there is a standardized syllabus that is being taught. The course is curated by the professors. So, you cannot. It creates a chilling effect. I think it does. So that is most striking for me, is CCTV cameras inside classrooms. I don’t think any democracy in the world has that. I don’t think we should.
Hamza: Especially in a field like law. So, let’s say maybe in medical classrooms or something like that, that might not be such big of an issue.
Prakruthi: What are you trying to achieve? So, if you read the circular, they say they want to install CCTV cameras to monitor student conduct.
Hamza: And that is not defined.
Prakruthi: They are monitoring the advocates conduct or student conduct. Like what if somebody is just sleeping in the classroom? What are they going to do about that?
Hamza: Right. It does not even elaborate on what is prohibited student conduct that they want to define.
Prakruthi: Big broad definitions maybe. It should have been drafted with more precision and clarity. It could have been a very, very nice circular, good for the reforms of legal education and, you know, improving the standards. But because of these vague terms, it gives them a lot of room to arbitrarily exercise power,
Hamza: Right. So, the first is on CCTV cameras and then?
Prakruthi: Second is a criminal background check system. So, what the circular envisages is that There must be a declaration made by every student who’s wishing to get an admission into a university, a law college, about any ongoing FIR, ongoing criminal case. It can be a private complaint before a magistrate. In which cognizance has it been taken yet? I can file one against you. You can file one against me and I’ll have to disclose that. And then comes your convictions and acquittals. All of this is put in one basket. And what flows from that the the consequence of that is the Bar Council will finally decide whether a final degree and mark sheet is to be issued
to the student or not. And till the time the Bar Council give its final decision. The law college cannot give the final degree or mark sheet, so they must withhold even in cases of acquittal. That is what the circular, the interpretation, or the consequence of putting all of these in the same basket says, that this power exists. Whether or not they exercise that power is secondary. But the fact that such a power exists, you’ve created a power which has nothing to control it Is bad in law. That’s my argument.
Vivek: So, what is the rationale given for such?
Prakruthi: Because they want to uphold integrity and moral standards of the legal education. Mind you, the Advocates Act already has a framework where people convicted or advocates who are enrolled or to be enrolled are convicted of offences involving moral turpitude. Their Bar Council registration can be cancelled. So now you're broadening it two ways. First, you’re increasing the number of people you are. Calculating by not just regulating advocates or people who are intending to enrol as advocates. And including students who might never want to enrol. You might just want to do an MBA. You might just not want to do anything. You need to get your degree.
Hamza: Right. And it also includes all petty offenses. So, let’s say I participated in a protest and I got an FIR, I must disclose that.
Prakruthi: Yeah. Because now, now there are a lot of student protests happening. If you’re a law student, you have an FIR. The Bar Council might direct the law college to withhold your degree in final marksheet. It may happen, it may not happen, but that law is on our books. It’s standing. It’s constitutional today. Till the time the court does not decide on its constitutionality.
Hamza: and that discretion by the BCI gets exercised at the end of my college. So, imagine throughout my four years of college, I study and complete my courses with the hope that the BCI exercises its discretion in my favor. Maybe five years after, you know, I have studied law, the BCI decides against me and then I’ve wasted those five years of my life. So, it leaves everyone in such a state of, you know, uncertainty
Prakruthi: We must test the law with extreme examples for it to You know, fit within the contours of reasonableness. They have given a clarification circular after notice was issued by the Supreme Court in my petition that this circular is again towards upholding moral integrity and ethical standards and it is not violative of Article 14. I don’t know what kind of clarification that is, but a clarification should have included. The limits to the powers that they have created.
Hamza: Right. So, what was the third thing?
Prakruthi: The third one is biometric attendance. Now I don't necessarily have a problem with biometric attendance collection if you have safeguards in place. Because our college, any college, the law colleges are not just government colleges, there are private universities also. So, data collection by private players, even if it’s a government college, this may be outsourced to a technology service provider who is a private player. So how is this, how are you safeguarding this data? Now all this data is to be preserved, including the CCTV recordings for I think two to three years. What’s the point of preserving it for that law? How are you ensuring there is no secondary use of the data that you’re collecting? We, as a society have Already accepted privacy as a fundamental right way back in 2017, but it’s where in 2026 and we’re still discussing how to protect each other’s data. And there is no consent-based mechanism. It’s forced. The DPDP Act for example, asks for consent right before any data principle collects data. Where is that? How are you complying with that law? It’s not just violative of right to privacy, it’s also violative of the DPDP Act once it’s ruled out.
Hamza: Right. So, if I was to understand correctly, there are almost three parallel grounds on which you seem to be challenging this circular. One, the authority of the BCI over students of law to this, you know, extent whether it can, you know, monitor all of this or whether its jurisdiction starts once they apply for involvement as an advocate. The second thing, even on principles, if all the safeguards were there, can we mandate let’s say CCTV installation in classrooms? And the third thing is the absence of safeguards and clarity and guidelines that, you know, direct how the discretion is to be exercised by BCI in terms of, you know, how are they monitoring student conduct or how are they going to decide on the criminal antecedents? So, these are, I think, 3 parallel grounds on which you are, you know, building your challenge to this circular. How are you building that challenge? What articles do you think are violated? What judgments do you think are being overstepped in this particular?
Prakruthi: Article 21. Obviously, because right to privacy is a part of right to life, to live with dignity. Then comes your Puttaswamy judgment, which also recognizes right to privacy. The DPDP Act, which protects your data, any personal data which one can identify the person using that data includes your e-mail ID, your phone number, your fingerprints. Biometric essentially means fingerprint or iris scans. How are you going to make, how are you going to ensure that people with disabilities are not adversely affected? We know that these technologies do not. Certainly, are not adequately refined to basically there’s systematic discrimination that happens, right? Iris scans are not always accurate. Fingerprint scans are not always accurate face scans are not always accurate. These this technology is racist. Sometimes they club people who look similar features as one person. How do you Ensure that level of because you want to monitor student conduct and you want to accurately monitor attendance. How are you ensuring that accuracy? Your goal is not met. But what are the problems that you’re creating along with it? That is the question. Now, biometric attendance is not a problem. You can have lesser intrusive mechanisms. You can have like a smart card, you can just swipe the smart card, it logs into your system automatically without you giving your data. Or what’s the problem with normal pen paper attendance? We’ve been using it since time before. How does it matter?
Hamza: what is the status in this petition? What has the Supreme Court held so far? And when do you expect the final judgement.
Prakruthi: This is sub judice. I don’t think I can comment on that. But notices have been issued. There were some people who find their file, their intervention applications. The issue has been broadened to include whether there should be mandatory attendance at all. That is a broader question that has been framed by the court itself. So multiple people were heard on that. It has been posted for final arguments this month, in the last week of this month.
Vivek: Can you just comment upon what is the Sushant Rohilla case’s current status? Because there’s a lot of ambiguity surrounding that.
Prakruthi: It was stayed by the Supreme Court initially, but there came an interim measure saying no adverse impact must be meted out to students who’ve already been protected on who’ve already given their exams. Kind of a status quo you may say that has been maintained again with respect to that. It's easier to pin the blame on the students. A lot of us I especially like, I know a lot of people first hand who bunk classes not to chill at home or watch movies or relax. They did that so that they can go out, do internships for free without being paid a penny. Learn skills which will make them employable. The first step to improving legal education is to improve the relevancy of what is being taught in the classrooms.
Vivek: Right. GLC Mumbai has this mandate if I’m not wrong that 4th and 50 years get internship leaves of some sort. How is this accommodated into it? And like many law colleagues, don’t have such leaves.
Prakruthi: No if because the culture over there. Is like NLUs, top tier NLUs the culture is more of going into corporate firms. Therefore, internships, litigation internships don’t really matter much for major chunk of the students. Again, people are trying to change that. People want like you have multiple people saying, even the judges of the Supreme Court, which encourage NLU students to come and litigate. These colleges, more traditional law colleges like GLC, have a culture of litigation. And they have functioned that way. It’s easier to learn skills on the go when you are under the tutorship of somebody who is in the profession. And there’s nothing wrong with that. That doesn’t mean the standard of your legal education is bad. It just means that you’re accepting a more practical based learning experience rather than a theoretical learning experience. Different mode of different and A blanket ban on or a blanket requirement of mandatory attendance, no internships, nothing that would create. I don’t think they’re trying to do that. They’re saying you attend classes during the semester. You can intern during the breaks. A lot of the times are breaks collide with court vacations also, right? Then students who want to intern throughout the semester. And that is not that does not, that is not indicative of the student being not serious. Because if somebody is going out working for six months, 10 months without being paid a single penny, I think they are damn serious.
Hamza: right. So how come you did not, you know, your intervention or your petition does not involve anything regarding the scope of mandatory attendance. Is that an issue that you left for like other individuals to?
Prakruthi: No, when I filed this, I did not even think of this. My challenge was limited to the CCTV surveillance criminal background Check. And the biometric attendance, this happened later. The Suo moto court has already taken it up themselves, so that was a separate issue. But I again think the. Common thread is that students as stakeholders are not being consulted. And this is the only way we can voice our opinion. In fact. When I just, when I was talking about internships, there’s one thing we missed the criminal background check system. There are several high courts, multiple high courts. I have also cited those judgments, and I’ll be happy to present them in court. Also, they have regularly granted parole to people convicted or under trial prisoners. Including offences involving 302 murders for completing their exams. For internships, A mandatory internship, an under-trial prisoner, I think Kerala High Court has given this judgment. Parole was granted to an under-trial prisoner so that they can complete their internship. All of these are law students. They have relaxed attendance for Students who are under trials. Or kind of come up with an online attendance kind of a thing where you can attend through audio, visual means, stuff like that. Now when we are trying to make it more flexible, more accessible to different kinds of people. Why are we taking a step back?
Hamza: Right, There’s no rationale behind this circular in my opinion. So, I think having covered the substance of circular now before concluding this podcast and this discussion with you, there’s something that was like very encouraging in the fact that you appeared as a petition petitioner in person, I think just after a year after having been enrolled in the Bar Council, you know, directly before the Supreme Court. Were you assisted by a senior counsel for arguing or did you argue these matters yourself? I mean, did a senior counsel assist your and they argued the matter or you argued that?
Prakruthi: The final arguments are yet to happen. Notice was issued in 2025. That time I was still in college. I was in my final year of college. Notice was issued and it’s yet to be heard. Finally, I think I will argue it myself. I’m arguing with it with my friend, my school friend, he’s a second petitioner in the same.
Hamza: So, we have this presumption generally that, you know, the Supreme Court generally doesn’t like to give a lot of attention to parties in person or like young advocates themselves either, and is only open to, let’s say, senior advocates and gets convinced only by them. Do you think this experience has changed that perception for you? Do you think the court is open to listening, you know, young petitioners in person, young advocates, if they are well prepared with their case and, you know, they argue it well? Or do you still think it’s a Forte reserved for seniors and your case is an exception?
Prakruthi: No, no, in fact, I think it is to the contrary. A lot of these judges are very encouraging of juniors, especially newcomers like me. I don’t come from a background of privilege. I mean, not in that sense, but legal privilege. I have nobody in my family who’s done this. So, they’re very encouraging, very, very encouraging, and sometimes they also. You can see all these clips in social media how you know a young advocate is being taught by the judge and very, very nicely. They try to encourage people. Us because they also, in fact they are more sometimes harsher towards senior advocates because if they make a mistake then. They have no scope for making this, no room for mistakes, but we can always learn and judge the encouraging of that. I think so. And even party in person, petitioner in person, if you’re coming up with a genuine grievance. Or something which is not motivated by external factors. There's no reason why they wouldn’t hear you. There’s no reason why.
Hamza: I think we can conclude this podcast. It was a pleasure having you here Prakruthi.
