BCI Co-Chairman Demands Manan Kumar Mishra's Resignation: Full Breakdown of Allegations and What It Means for Indian Lawyers
EduLaw EditorialLegal UpdatesA formal resignation demand at the Bar Council of India General Council meeting has thrust the apex legal regulatory body into its deepest leadership crisis in decades. Here is everything you need to know. The Bar Council of India, the statutory body entrusted with regulating the legal profession across the country, is witnessing an extraordinary internal confrontation. BCI Co-Chairman Y.R. Sadasiva Reddy, a Senior Advocate, has formally demanded the immediate resignation of BCI Chairman Manan Kumar Mishra. The demand was placed before the BCI General Council during a physical meeting held at the Council's office in New Delhi on August 22, 2026, marking a significant escalation in what has become the most serious governance dispute in the institution's recent history. Reddy addressed his demand through a detailed letter to Mishra, setting out eight specific grounds on which he says the Chairman must vacate office. The letter, both measured in tone and severe in substance, concludes with a pointed observation: "The Bar of this country deserves better than what it is presently receiving from its own Council. I ask you to allow it that opportunity." The NALSAR Controversy That Triggered the Flashpoint The immediate catalyst for the resignation demand was the BCI's now-withdrawn directive concerning the 2026 graduating batch of NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad. On August 13, 2026, the BCI Chairman's office issued a circular directing State Bar Councils not to enrol NALSAR's graduating students as advocates. The directive came after certain students expressed objections to the participation of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant at their convocation ceremony. The circular was reversed within hours following a storm of criticism from the legal fraternity, bar associations, and legal academics. Mishra subsequently issued a letter of apology to the students. However, Reddy argues the damage was already done. In his letter, he writes: "The office of Chairman was used to threaten an entire graduating batch of law students — young men and women with no power and no voice — with exclusion from the profession, as a reprisal for having held an opinion. That single act, in my respectful but firm view, has done more damage to the standing of this Council than anything else in its history, and it is by itself sufficient ground for you to demit office." Reddy further asserts that the decision was taken unilaterally, without being placed before the Council or deliberated upon by its members, and that he as Co-Chairman was not consulted. Allegations of Financial Irregularities and Fund Diversion Beyond the NALSAR episode, the resignation demand rests on deeply troubling financial allegations. Reddy claims that approximately Rs 150 crore of BCI funds have been transferred to a newly created entity called BCI Trust PEARL-First. According to his letter, the original Bar Council of India Trust was allowed to fall into disuse, and this new trust was set up in its place. Reddy states that BCI members have not been shown the Trust Deed of PEARL-First and that the manner of the trust's creation raises serious governance questions. More damaging still is the allegation that law colleges seeking BCI approval or renewal of approval are being asked to make financial contributions to PEARL-First. Reddy writes that "persistent and credible complaints" have reached him from more than one State, with the amounts allegedly demanded ranging from Rs 25 lakh to Rs 50 lakh and up to Rs 1 crore. He argues that a regulator accepting money from entities it regulates fundamentally undermines its authority and credibility. Nepotism in Appointments Reddy's letter also targets what he describes as a pattern of nepotistic appointments within the BCI establishment. He alleges that posts were filled without advertisements, selection committee proceedings, or comparative merit lists. He further claims that "a striking proportion of the staff are persons connected to you personally, several of them being members of, or related to, your own family." Additionally, he alleges that members of Mishra's family hold key positions in institutions established under the BCI and its trusts. Fourteen Years in the Chair: Questions Over Democratic Legitimacy One of the most pointed grounds in Reddy's letter concerns Mishra's prolonged tenure. Mishra has served continuously as BCI Chairman since 2012 and was returned for a further consecutive term in 2025. Reddy writes: "An elected office that has one occupant for fourteen years has ceased, in any real sense, to be an elected office." He questions whether the elections to the chairmanship are genuinely contested, alleging that "the arrangements are so managed that the outcome is a foregone conclusion." This concern is shared by other Council members. BCI member Manoj Kumar Narendran from Kerala, who also raised the resignation demand during the General Council meeting, told The Hindu that a recent amendment extending the C