Chennai law graduates boycott mandatory All India Bar Examination

Law graduates across Chennai on Sunday boycotted the mandatory All India Bar Examination 2009-10, demanding that it be scrapped.

The exam is compulsory for graduates to allow them to practice law in India.

Students staged a road-roko outside exam halls all over the city and sat across railway tracks to register their protest.

In examination centres like Stella Maris College and Queen Mary's college, students tore up hall tickets, trooped out and sat on the road, shouting slogans against Bar Council of India.

A law graduate at Stella Mary's college centre, a practicing advocate in Madras high court demanded to know why they should write the exam even after enrolling with the bar council. He pointed out that medical and engineering professionals do not have to write this kind of compulsory exam on graduation.

In St Thomas Mount, around 500 law graduates staged a rail roko at the nearby station.

A Ramesh, who led the protest urged Bar Council of India not to hold such mandatory exams and said some of them have already started practising as advocates after being enrolled in the bar and getting identity cards and certificates.

The law graduates also said many of them had not received the hall tickets and preparatory materials by Bar Council of India.