‘Padho bhai’: Supreme Court dismisses plea to lower AIBE 18 cut-offs

NEW DELHI: Supreme Court has dismissed the petition to reduce the cut-off for All India Bar Examination (AIBE). A bench led by the Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud said that lowering the AIBE cut-off will affect the quality of lawyers and said ‘padho bhai’ in passing.

“They have put a cut off of 45 for the general category and 40 for SC/ST. What kind of lawyer will the person be if they cannot score this much? You are asking to lower it to 40 and 35! "Padho bhai! (please study)," the Live Law quoted CJI as saying.

The Bar Council of India (BCI) conducts the All India Bar Examination (AIBE) to award Certificate of Practice (CoP) for candidates to practice law in Indian courts. The AIBE cut-off 2024 was general and OBC category was set at 45% and 40% for SC, ST, and PwD candidates.

In the last session, the AIBE 18 results were calculated for 93 marks, as 7 questions were withdrawn and the passing marks were rounded up to 42 marks for general and OBC and 37 for reserved category candidates. Notably, the AIBE cut-offs for the past few years was at 40% and 35% for general and reserved category.

A recent RTI reply revealed that 51.63% of students failed to clear the AIBE 18 exam. The BCI informed that a total of 1,44,014 students appeared for the AIBE 18, of which 69,646 were declared pass. However, candidates’ scores were not displayed on the scorecard. And in response, the BCI said the query doesn’t come under the information section of the RTI Act.