Published Aug 14, 2026 | 6:50 PM ⚊ Updated Aug 14, 2026 | 6:50 PM
BCI chairman Manan Kumar Mishra and CJI of India Surya Kant.
Synopsis: BCI chief Manan Mishra, after being “more loyal than the king”, was pulled up by the Chief Justice of India and some senior judges over a circular seen as an overreach that could affect the image of the Supreme Court, South First has learnt.
Why did BJP MP and Bar Council of India (BCI) chairman Manan Kumar Mishra withdraw his controversial August 13 order restraining state bar councils from enrolling the 2026 batch students of NALSAR at Hyderabad?
Having issued the order, Manan Mishra modified it within an hour following severe backlash on social media. Instead of a blanket ban on enrolling NALSAR students, the revised circular said the BCI will examine if any student attracts “regulatory considerations governing entry into profession.”
Hours after the modified circular, Mishra totally withdrew it. So, what transpired in between?
According to informed sources, the Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, as well as some senior judges, were understood to have conveyed their displeasure to Mishra for issuing such a circular. They clearly saw it as an overreach that could affect the image of the apex court even though no judge had anything to do with it.
Mishra was told in clear terms that the circular should be withdrawn, and he promptly complied after having acted “more loyal than the king.”
The genesis of the issue lay in a section of the 2026 batch students opposing the presence of the Chief Justice of India at the upcoming convocation of NALSAR. They did this to register their protest over Justice Surya Kant branding unemployed lawyers and others as “cockroaches.” That remark had led to the now-famous Jantar Mantar protest and the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan as India’s Education Minister, forcing the CJI also to clarify his remarks more than once.
Highly-placed officials of NALSAR told South First that in any case the matter (students opposing the CJI’s participation in the convocation) was something to be resolved between the university administration and students and an outside agency has no role to play. “Who will raise such questions if not students? As revolutionary poet Sri Sri once said, if you are not a Communist when young, there is something wrong. The BCI has clearly gone beyond its domain,” one of them said.
Interestingly, senior advocate K Parameshwar, who moved a petition in the SC on Friday, August 14, questioning the BCI circular, is himself an alumnus of NALSAR. “The BCI had no business to issue such a circular,” the CJI said during the hearing.
“No punitive action shall be taken against the students or Faculty of NALSAR University of Law at the instance of Bar Council of India or any State Bar Council in respect of the incidents mentioned in the subject letters,” the SC order later went on to say.
NALSAR vice-chancellor Prof Srikrishna Deva Rao issued a statement, before the BCI withdrew its circular, that the Executive Council would examine the Bar Council’s demand for an inquiry report on the students involved in the protest.
Though the circular has since been withdrawn, the Executive Council of NALSAR is expected to meet within a week and place on record that any issue relating to “academic governance” of the university falls only within its purview and jurisdiction.
Sources said that this was not the first time that the BCI has acted in an unprofessional manner. NALSAR has been suffering without funds to run its distance education programmes for want of approval from the BCI. The University Grants Commission (UGC) has not released a grant of Rs 3 crore to NALSAR because of this.
Mishra, who has been heading the BCI for more than a decade now, also got the NALSAR vice-chancellor removed as a member of the legal education committee of the Bar Council. This was Mishra’s retort to suggestions given by Krishna Deva Rao on improving academic programmes when he was serving at the National Law University, New Delhi.
Then came the CAA protests.
Mishra used the BCI platform to describe those protesting as an “illiterate ignorant mass” being misled.
Nearly 1,000 lawyers subsequently disassociated themselves from the statement, saying it did not represent the views of the Bar.
The point is… pic.twitter.com/80kakqFLZm
— Nayini Anurag Reddy (@NAR_Handle) August 14, 2026
(Edited by R Rajesh Kumar.)
