The Bar Council of India (BCI) on Monday told the Madras High Court that it had not taken any final decision on postponing the All India Bar Examinations (AIBE) to August 31 and that it had only sent a proposal to a committee headed by a retired Supreme Court judge.

Justices N. Kirubakaran and R. Pongiappan were informed about it by BCI counsel S.R. Raghunathan during the hearing of a writ petition filed by law graduate S. Harikrishnan, 24, of Tiruvarur for conduct of enrolment in the council through video-conferencing mode.

Advocate C.K. Chandrashekar, representing the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, said it would not be possible to enrol new law graduates through video-conference since the rules do not permit such a procedure and also because the signatures of the graduates had to be obtained.

After hearing them and taking their counter affidavits on file, the judges adjourned the case by a week. In his affidavit, the petitioner had claimed to have completed his law degree from a college in Bengaluru in July 2019.

Thereafter, he made an application for enrolment with the BCTNP and submitted all requisite documents in January. He also attended an inquiry at the council on March 13. However, the enrolment alone could not take place due to the lockdown to fight COVID-19.

Since he would be able to write the AIBE, an aptitude test conducted by BCI for provisionally enrolled lawyers, only after getting enrolled, he sought a direction to BCTNP to conduct the enrolment through video conference.

During the last hearing of the case, the judges wanted to know whether the BCI had any plans to postpone the AIBE.