What began as a disagreement among students over the choice of a convocation guest at one of India's leading law universities rapidly became a much larger constitutional controversy involving the Bar Council of India (BCI), its long-serving chairman Manan Kumar Mishra, the Chief Justice of India, the Supreme Court, hundreds of NALSAR alumni and fundamental questions about freedom of expression and the limits of professional regulation.

The controversy is particularly striking because the person whom some NALSAR students were protesting against — Chief Justice of India Surya Kant — ultimately became one of the strongest public critics of the BCI's attempt to take action against those students. On 14 August, the Supreme Court restrained the BCI and State Bar Councils from taking punitive action against NALSAR students or faculty over the episode.

The episode therefore goes beyond a university convocation dispute. It raises a more consequential question: Can a professional regulator use control over entry into a profession as leverage against students because of political, institutional or judicial criticism expressed before they have even entered that profession?

Who is Manan Kumar Mishra?

Manan Kumar Mishra is a Senior Advocate, chairman of the Bar Council of India and a BJP member of the Rajya Sabha from Bihar. The BJP's official listing identifies him as one of its Rajya Sabha members from Bihar. He has dominated the BCI's leadership for more than a decade and was re-elected for a seventh consecutive term as chairman in March 2025.

This combination of positions is important to understanding why the NALSAR controversy attracted extraordinary attention. The BCI is not merely a private association of lawyers. It is a statutory regulatory institution created under the Advocates Act, 1961. It regulates important aspects of India's legal profession and legal education. Mishra simultaneously holds political office as a BJP parliamentarian.

There is nothing inherently unlawful about a lawyer, regulator or BCI office-holder being politically affiliated. But when a statutory regulator takes positions on politically sensitive controversies, the distinction between an individual's political views and the institutional authority of the regulator becomes particularly important.

That distinction has followed Mishra for years. Reporting by ThePrint documents previous occasions on which BCI communications under his leadership commented on the Citizenship Amendment Act protests, statements made by lawyers about judges and the Supreme Court, the same-sex-marriage proceedings, the Ram Mandir consecration and electoral politics. Critics have repeatedly questioned whether a statutory professional body should speak institutionally on such matters; Mishra and the BCI have, at different times, defended strong intervention as necessary to protect the profession, courts or national institutions.

The NALSAR episode brought that older debate into unusually sharp focus because this time the regulatory power at issue directly affected students' ability to begin practising law.

How the NALSAR dispute began

The immediate controversy originated not with Manan Kumar Mishra but with a section of students at NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad.

Around 450 students reportedly asked the university to reconsider inviting Chief Justice Surya Kant as chief guest for the 2026 convocation. Reporting indicates that an initial representation was made by around 70 graduating students on 23 July, with students from subsequent batches later expressing solidarity.

Their objection arose principally from the CJI's handling of an attempt to urgently raise allegations concerning police action against students during protests in Delhi.

On 22 July, during mentioning proceedings in the Supreme Court, a lawyer referred to alleged police violence against protesters and offered video material. The Chief Justice declined to view the videos at that stage and made remarks telling counsel not to waste the Court's time. These remarks became widely reported and provoked criticism.

But an important part of the episode received less attention initially.

On 24 July, CJI Surya Kant clarified that no substantive writ petition had actually been filed before the Court at the relevant time. What existed was a representation, and the Court had been approached during mentioning for urgent listing. He therefore disputed suggestions that a properly instituted petition concerning police brutality had been refused a hearing.

The subsequent conduct of the Supreme Court makes the story still more complicated. On 28 July, when properly instituted proceedings concerning the protests reached the Court, the Supreme Court reportedly ordered protection against coercive action, directed preservation of surveillance material and ordered safeguards concerning protesters and minors.

Therefore, the background cannot accurately be reduced to either of two slogans — that the CJI simply "refused justice to students", or that the NALSAR students invented the controversy.

The students were reacting to genuine reported oral remarks that they regarded as insensitive. But the procedural context was more complicated: the earlier intervention was not a fully filed petition, and the Supreme Court subsequently entertained litigation concerning the protests and granted significant protective relief.

From student representation to regulatory confrontation

Had the dispute remained between NALSAR's students and university administration, it might have remained an internal debate over academic freedom, protest and institutional decorum.

That changed dramatically on 13 August 2026.

The Bar Council of India issued a communication directing State Bar Councils not to enrol any graduate of NALSAR's 2026 batch as an advocate until further directions. It simultaneously sought a report from NALSAR concerning the student campaign.

The requested inquiry was extensive.

The university was asked to provide materials relating to the representations and to identify people allegedly instrumental in initiating, drafting, circulating or organising the campaign. The communication also sought information concerning mobilisation, media communication and administration of electronic or social-media groups connected with the protest.

This was the moment at which an argument over respect for the Chief Justice became a major constitutional and administrative-law dispute.

The BCI's original communication treated the episode as something potentially relevant to fitness for the legal profession. It distinguished legitimate expression from conduct involving intimidation, obstruction or organised boycott and suggested that disrespect for judicial institutions could be inconsistent with professional responsibility. Importantly, however, the BCI acknowledged that it was not at that point invoking Section 24A of the Advocates Act, which specifies statutory disqualifications from enrolment.

Instead, the BCI argued in substance that allowing enrolment while the matter was being examined could make subsequent scrutiny ineffective.

That proposition became the legal weak point of the directive.

Could the BCI legally stop the entire NALSAR batch from enrolling?

The Advocates Act creates a divided regulatory structure.

The State Bar Councils maintain State rolls and admit persons as advocates. The Bar Council of India performs important supervisory, rule-making and legal-education functions, but it does not ordinarily make the initial decision enrolling every advocate.

Section 24 sets out qualifications for admission. Section 24A identifies particular disqualifications, such as certain convictions involving moral turpitude and specified dismissals from public employment. Peacefully signing or organising a university representation objecting to a convocation guest is not expressly listed among those statutory grounds.

There are circumstances in which the BCI becomes involved in an enrolment decision. For example, under Section 26, where a State Bar Council proposes to refuse an individual application, the matter may be referred to the BCI and the State Council must act consistently with its opinion. But that mechanism concerns particular enrolment applications and proposed refusals; it is very different from imposing a pre-emptive national freeze on every graduate belonging to an entire university batch.

The BCI also unquestionably possesses substantial authority over legal education. Section 7 permits it to promote legal education, prescribe standards and exercise supervision within the statutory scheme. Its Legal Education Rules connect recognition of universities with eligibility for enrolment.

But regulating the academic standard of a law degree and punishing individual students for their political or institutional expression are very different exercises of power.

That distinction lies at the heart of the challenge now before the Supreme Court.

The first reversal

The original directive immediately attracted criticism within the legal community.

Within hours, the BCI modified its position. It allowed NALSAR's 2026 graduates to enrol, explaining that the overwhelming majority of students were not responsible for the conduct that concerned the Council. The proposed inquiry, however, initially remained alive.

This produced an unusual situation.

The BCI was effectively saying that the class-wide professional restriction had been excessive, but that it still wanted NALSAR to identify those who had initiated or organised the campaign.

NALSAR Vice-Chancellor Professor Srikrishna Deva Rao then responded cautiously. Rather than immediately conduct the requested investigation, the university said its Executive Council would first consider whether such an inquiry was permissible within the university's statutory and governance framework.

That response moved the controversy from disagreement over proportionality to a direct jurisdictional question: Did the BCI have the power to instruct an autonomous university to investigate students and faculty for peaceful expression?

The second reversal: all proceedings dropped

Before that question could be resolved institutionally, Manan Kumar Mishra reversed the position again.

Later on 13 August, he announced that the proceedings would be closed altogether. The demand for further action against the students was dropped. He maintained that students should express opinions with appropriate institutional respect and decorum, but the proposed inquiry was abandoned.

In less than a day, the regulatory response had therefore travelled through three positions:

  1. freeze enrolment of the entire graduating batch and investigate organisers;
  2. allow enrolment but continue the inquiry;
  3. drop the proceedings entirely.

The speed of these reversals became almost as controversial as the original order itself.

Did Manan Kumar Mishra act on his own?

This is now one of the most significant unresolved issues.

On 15 August, The Indian Express reported that five BCI office-bearers said Mishra had issued the original directive without first consulting colleagues, placing it on BCI letterhead before seeking approval through the Council's WhatsApp group. This is a reported account from unnamed or attributed institutional sources and should not yet be treated as a judicial finding.

The question matters because the authority involved was not personal authority. The directive purported to speak for the Bar Council of India and attempted to affect enrolment across State Bar Councils.

The Supreme Court itself has now shown interest in precisely this institutional issue. During the proceedings, Justice Joymalya Bagchi asked whether the BCI had actually been convened to adopt such a resolution.

The controversy therefore concerns not only what the BCI tried to do, but how a statutory institution arrived at the decision.

The Supreme Court's extraordinary response

The most remarkable intervention came from CJI Surya Kant himself.

When the challenge reached the Supreme Court on 14 August, the CJI expressly defended the students' right to protest peacefully — even though he was the constitutional functionary whose invitation they had opposed.

The Court's position was that peaceful student disagreement should not invite professional retaliation from the Bar regulator. CJI Kant characterised the matter essentially as a dialogue between himself and the students and questioned why the BCI needed to intervene.

More importantly, the bench did not restrict itself to oral criticism.

The Supreme Court issued notice to the BCI and directed that no punitive action be taken against NALSAR students or faculty by the BCI or any State Bar Council in connection with the events described in the impugned communications. The matter was made returnable on 3 September 2026, with the BCI asked to file its response.

The judicial proceedings therefore remain alive even though Mishra withdrew the underlying letters.

Why didn't withdrawal end the case?

Ordinarily, withdrawing a controversial administrative order may render litigation against it largely academic.

Here, the petitioners argue that the issue survives because the Court must determine whether the regulator possessed such power in the first place and whether similar action can occur again.

The case, titled Mihira Sood and another v. Bar Council of India and others, challenges the BCI's statutory authority and seeks an inquiry into how the communications came to be issued. According to the petition, participation in a peaceful student campaign cannot be transformed into an additional, extra-statutory disqualification from enrolment.

The petitioners also invoke Article 19(1)(a), contending that identifying the authors and organisers of peaceful institutional criticism under threat of professional consequences creates a chilling effect on free expression. These are arguments made by the petitioners; their ultimate legal merits remain for the Court to determine.

That distinction is essential. As of 15 August, the Supreme Court has protected the students and questioned the BCI's conduct, but it has not yet delivered a final judgment declaring Mishra's actions unlawful or fixing personal liability.

The alumni revolt

The BCI's withdrawal did not end criticism from the NALSAR community.

More than 400 NALSAR alumni signed an open letter condemning the communications. The signatories argued that drafting a representation, circulating it, organising meetings, coordinating participation and communicating with the press are ordinarily forms of protected expression rather than evidence of professional misconduct.

The alumni's deeper objection was to the investigative architecture proposed by the first BCI letter.

To them, asking a university to identify organisers, media coordinators and administrators of electronic groups resembled an attempt to map the internal organisation of dissent. They argued that such intervention risked intimidating students and compromising university autonomy.

Whether one agrees with the students' original criticism of the CJI is therefore separate from the alumni's constitutional objection to the BCI.

A person may believe that the students misunderstood the July Supreme Court proceedings, behaved discourteously, or chose an inappropriate target for protest — and still conclude that denying them entry to the legal profession would be disproportionate and legally unsupported.

That distinction is perhaps the most important conceptual point in the entire controversy.

The paradox at the centre of the case

There is a striking constitutional paradox.

The BCI apparently intervened in order to defend the dignity of the Chief Justice and judicial institutions.

But the Chief Justice himself rejected the need for that protection and defended the students' right peacefully to criticise him.

That reverses the conventional structure of such controversies.

Rather than a regulator protecting the judiciary from hostile students, the judiciary ended up protecting students from possible regulatory consequences imposed ostensibly in its defence.

For the legal profession, that is not a trivial symbolism.

Lawyers are expected to respect courts, but their professional role also requires independence — including the ability to challenge governmental authorities, administrative bodies and sometimes judges through lawful means.

A system that teaches future advocates that criticism of powerful institutions may jeopardise their licence risks producing obedience rather than professional independence.

Was the students' conduct beyond criticism?

A fair analysis should not romanticise every form of student protest.

Judicial independence depends partly upon society respecting judicial institutions, and organised intimidation of a judge would plainly raise different concerns from peaceful disagreement. Universities also legitimately regulate disruption, threats, harassment and obstruction.

The BCI itself attempted to draw such a line in its communication, distinguishing legitimate expression from coercion, vilification or obstruction.

The factual problem is that the publicly reported NALSAR activity principally concerned representations asking university authorities to reconsider the invitation. No final judicial determination has established that the approximately 450 students engaged in violence, threats or unlawful obstruction.

Moreover, even if individual students had crossed a legitimate disciplinary boundary, collective professional punishment of an entire graduating class would raise obvious proportionality and due-process problems.

The first BCI directive placed students who opposed the invitation, students who supported it, students who were indifferent to it and potentially students who had never participated at all under the same enrolment restriction.

That explains why even the BCI's own rapid reconsideration acknowledged the unfairness of treating the entire batch alike.

The larger issue: political identity and regulatory neutrality

Mishra's position as both BCI chairman and BJP Rajya Sabha member inevitably intensifies scrutiny.

It would be incorrect to argue that political membership automatically invalidates every regulatory decision taken by a person holding statutory office. But where a regulator repeatedly speaks on intensely political subjects, institutional neutrality becomes a legitimate question.

Previous reporting has documented BCI statements under Mishra concerning anti-CAA demonstrations, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, lawyers critical of the Supreme Court, marriage equality proceedings and other politically charged issues.

The NALSAR controversy is more serious than many of those previous statements because it connected institutional disapproval with something professionally existential: the ability of graduates to enrol as advocates.

That converts a debate about rhetoric into a debate about coercive regulatory power.

A separate debate over Mishra's long tenure

The timing has also revived scrutiny of Mishra's unusually long leadership of the BCI.

A separate petition reported on 14 August seeks structural reforms concerning BCI governance, including limits or safeguards relating to long tenures and regional representation. The existence of that petition does not establish misconduct by Mishra, and it should not be conflated with the NALSAR case. But the two controversies have converged politically around the same question: how much institutional power should be concentrated in the BCI chairmanship?

The NALSAR episode has consequently become not only a free-speech controversy but also a governance controversy.

What the controversy tells us about the rule of law

The most significant lesson may be institutional rather than personal.

The rule of law is tested not merely by whether authorities eventually reach the correct decision, but by how easily coercive power can be invoked before safeguards intervene.

The enrolment restriction survived only briefly. The BCI reversed it rapidly. Students ultimately remained entitled to seek enrolment. The Supreme Court intervened. In one sense, therefore, institutional correction worked.

But another interpretation is less comforting.

A communication carrying the authority of India's apex Bar regulator was capable, at least temporarily, of threatening the professional future of an entire graduating class because of a campus protest. Only after public criticism, institutional resistance and judicial intervention was the position comprehensively reversed.

That raises questions larger than Manan Kumar Mishra.

What internal approvals should be required before the BCI takes an extraordinary nationwide decision? Should the chairman be capable of issuing such consequential interim directions independently? What procedural hearing is owed to individuals whose professional eligibility is questioned? Where does regulation of professional ethics end and regulation of political expression begin?

The Supreme Court proceedings may eventually provide answers.

Where matters stand on 15 August 2026

The immediate threat to NALSAR's graduating students has effectively been removed.

The BCI withdrew the blanket enrolment restriction, subsequently dropped the proposed inquiry and closed the proceedings. The Supreme Court has independently protected NALSAR students and faculty against punitive BCI or State Bar Council action connected with the incident.

But the judicial controversy itself is not over.

The Supreme Court has issued notice to the BCI and has sought a response. The matter is presently scheduled to return on 3 September 2026. The Court is being asked to examine, among other things, the statutory basis for the BCI's action and the process through which the chairman's communications were issued.

Meanwhile, fresh reporting that several BCI office-bearers say they were not consulted before the initial communication gives the governance question added significance, though those accounts remain allegations/reporting rather than findings of the Court.

Conclusion

The NALSAR controversy should not ultimately be understood as a contest over whether Chief Justice Surya Kant deserved to be invited to a university convocation.

Reasonable people can disagree about the students' original protest. Their interpretation of the July Supreme Court episode can be criticised, particularly because the procedural circumstances were more complicated than early reports suggested and the Supreme Court subsequently granted significant protection to the protesters whose treatment had generated the controversy.

The more important issue arose afterwards.

When a statutory professional regulator responded to peaceful criticism by temporarily threatening the professional entry of an entire class of future lawyers, the controversy shifted from what students should say to what the State and its statutory institutions may do in response to what they say.

On that question, the intervention of CJI Surya Kant is particularly consequential. The person supposedly being defended by the BCI insisted that students were entitled peacefully to disagree with him and questioned the regulator's interference.

That may prove to be the enduring lesson of the affair.

Respect for the judiciary cannot mean immunity from criticism. Professional ethics cannot become a mechanism for ideological conformity. And the authority to regulate lawyers must itself remain subject to statute, due process, proportionality and judicial review.

For a profession whose central function is to challenge exercises of power through law, the NALSAR episode presents an unusually appropriate constitutional test: whether the institutions that regulate advocates are themselves prepared to live under the same rule of law that advocates are trained to defend.