The Bar Council of India (BCI) has released a firm advisory in which it declared that Master of Law (LLM) or equivalent legal education programmes offered in online, distance, hybrid, or blended media without the express approval of the Council will be referred to as unlawful and unrecognised. The advisory from the BCI has sent a scare among providers of legal education and applicants across the nation since it impacts academic acceptability, employability, and suitability for various professional opportunities in law.

All such LLM degree or equivalent qualification in law as obtained by such wrongful means will not be valid for appointment at the academic levels, UGC-NET, registration of PhD, and judicial levels. Regardless of whether the course is given by premier institutions or is a professional/executive course. The BCI has warned that such degrees earned from these unapproved courses will be null and void and any hiring or promotion on such qualifications will be considered misrepresentation.

The advice, penned by Justice (Retd) Rajendra Menon—former Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court and current co-chairperson of the Standing Committee on Legal Education of the BCI—was circulated to all the High Courts on June 25, 2025. The Council asked the High Courts to make this regulatory position note-worthy and prevent any appointment, promotion, or academic decision from being made on the basis of LLM or equivalent degrees obtained through modes not recognized or approved by the BCI.

Justice Menon’s letter puts it strongly that increasing numbers of institutions, ranging from private study centers to even elite universities, have been providing LLM and other postgraduate law courses in online-exclusive, distance, or blended modes. All these courses are being conducted without the categorical sanction of the Bar Council of India and hence infringing the Legal Education Rules of 2008 and 2020. The advisory emphatically advises that renaming the names of these courses as “LLM (Professional)” or “MSc (Law)” is not enough, if they are not in harmony with the statutory regime enacted by the BCI.

Additionally, the BCI cautioned that institutions have also been selling these courses as “executive” or “non-traditional” programs, which is misleading students. The advisory made it clear that the usage of abbreviations like LLM or any other term to suggest parity with a Master of Laws degree in an unauthorized manner, is not allowed by law.

For bringing them into line, the BCI has already sent show-cause notices to some of these institutions that have been operating such courses in the absence of permission. They are heavyweights such as National Law Institute University (NLIU), Bhopal; Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur; OP Jindal Global University, Sonipat; and National Law University (NLU), Delhi. These institutions have been requested by the Council to show cause as to why action against them should not be initiated for operating such programmes against legal education norms.

The BCI is concerned in that it feels that unmonitored hybrid and online legal education compromises the academic and professional integrity of the legal system. The advisory states that law education demands intense academic interaction, such as physical presence, court internships, and face-to-face faculty interaction—factors which cannot be fully replicated by distant learning techniques.

The Council has warned that the qualification of any candidate applying for appointment or promotion on the basis of such a degree shall not be acceptable unless he receives a certificate or guarantee from the BCI that the course was carried out as per its specified Legal Education Rules. The qualification will not be acceptable for any statutory, judicial, or academic purpose unless qualified accordingly.

This action by the BCI is the natural step to restrain the unchecked growth of legal education courses which are not compliant with its standards of regulation. It also demonstrates the Council’s determination to uphold the quality and integrity of legal qualifications in India.

With this advisory, potential law students have been cautioned to be careful while taking up online or blended LLM courses and to check if such courses are recognized by the BCI or not. The Council again made it clear that any violation in this context could lead to legal and professional repercussions, both for such institutions and students opting for these courses.

This innovation also brings in questioning about the future of Indian online legal education and whether approved regulatory models can adapt to accommodate emerging education paradigms. While as much as online education has experienced meteoric rise, particularly since the COVID pandemic, so is the BCI bent on keeping legal education in its traditional stiff form—at least until there is an official platform for digital delivery sanctioned.

On the current face of things, the message of the Bar Council is as transparent as day: without its explicit sanction, no LLM or equivalent law course instructed via distance or hybrid means will be legally valid, academically effective, or professionally acceptable in India.