HYDERABAD / BENGALURU — The ongoing friction between premium national law universities, the Bar Council of India (BCI), and the highest echelons of the judiciary reached a boiling point after the Student Bar Council (SBC) of NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad, issued a strongly worded statement backing the graduating batch of NLSIU Bengaluru. The NALSAR student body, supported by 111 alumni, officially condemned the unexpected cancellation of NLSIU’s annual convocation, calling the move “cruel.”
The controversy initially began in July when NALSAR students opposed a proposal to invite Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant to their convocation. In a dramatic response, the BCI briefly banned NALSAR’s 2026 batch from enrolling as advocates. Though the ban was swiftly revoked following intense criticism, the action triggered a wave of student solidarity across national law campuses. More than 700 students and alumni from NLSIU Bengaluru subsequently signed a statement opposing the presence of both BCI Chairman Manan Kumar Mishra and the CJI at their own graduation event scheduled for September 12.
Following an internal student vote, an agreement was reached ensuring that BCI Chairman Mishra would not attend and that the CJI would be present in his statutory capacity as Chancellor without campus disruptions. However, according to statements issued by the NALSAR SBC, students were later hit with a new administrative mandate: they were required to issue a public letter “re-inviting” the CJI to the venue.
When the graduating batch refused to comply with this demand, the NLSIU administration cancelled the entire convocation event, citing “unavoidable circumstances.”
In its solidarity statement, the NALSAR SBC heavily criticized the administration for imposing an unreasonable burden on students, alleging that demanding a public re-invitation was explicitly intended to force graduates to “go back on their act of dissent.” The student body noted that pulling the plug on the ceremony at the eleventh hour inflicts major financial and emotional distress on families who had already finalized travel plans. Warning against a wider systemic threat, the statement highlighted that such coercive administrative actions carry a heavy “chilling effect on future acts of dissent and solidarity” within premier academic institutions.