The All India Bar Examination (AIBE) is the test the Bar Council of India (BCI) uses to decide whether a law graduate may practise: pass it and you become eligible for a Certificate of Practice, fail it and your enrolment does not carry a right to appear in court. It is a 100-question objective paper spread across 19 subjects, and candidates may carry bare acts without notes or comments into the hall. Good preparation is therefore less about memorising sections and more about knowing where each answer sits in the statute you are holding.
What is the AIBE and why does it decide your right to practise?
The AIBE exists because the Advocates Act, 1961 lets the BCI regulate entry into the profession, and the BCI has made passing this exam a condition for practice. Section 24 of the Advocates Act sets out who may be admitted to a State roll, section 30 speaks of the right of advocates to practise, and section 49 gives the BCI its general rule-making power. The BCI's rules tie the Certificate of Practice to an AIBE pass.
The power was contested for years. On 10 February 2023 a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court, in Bar Council of India v. Bonnie Foi Law College, upheld the BCI's authority to conduct the examination. Since then the question has not been whether the AIBE is valid but when a candidate may sit for it.
If you want a plain account of why enrolment is the single gate into the profession, the Legal Firms magazine piece on the fight at the gate of the profession explains it through a recent dispute involving the BCI and a graduating batch.
Who is eligible to sit for the AIBE?
You can sit for the AIBE if you are a final-year, final-semester LL.B. student with no backlogs, or if you have passed the three-year or five-year LL.B. from a BCI-recognised university or a BCI-approved college. The notification of 27 September 2025 on the official AIBE website, read with the undertaking form attached to it, covers four categories:
- Final-semester students of a three-year or five-year LL.B. with no backlogs in earlier semesters.
- Graduates who have passed but not yet received the degree.
- Graduates who hold the degree but have not enrolled with any State Bar Council, or who enrolled and later surrendered their enrolment.
- Graduates in employment who did not enrol, or surrendered enrolment, because of that employment.
Students in the first two categories register on an undertaking and upload their semester marksheets. The catch is what happens after the result. Candidates who pass "under undertaking" must later upload their Enrolment Certificate within the window the BCI announces; the AIBE site carries a separate notice on this for AIBE XIX and later examinations. Miss that window and the pass stays incomplete.
Anyone who studied at an institution the BCI has not recognised or approved is ineligible, whatever their marks. Check your college's status before you pay the fee, not after.
How is the AIBE question paper divided across subjects?
The paper has 100 questions, and the BCI publishes the number of questions per subject. The table below reproduces the syllabus for AIBE XXII, issued by the BCI on 13 October 2026.
| Subject | Questions |
|---|---|
| Constitutional Law | 10 |
| IPC and Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita | 8 |
| CrPC and Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita | 10 |
| Code of Civil Procedure | 10 |
| Evidence Act and Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam | 8 |
| ADR including the Arbitration Act | 4 |
| Family Law | 8 |
| Public Interest Litigation | 4 |
| Administrative Law | 3 |
| Professional Ethics and misconduct under BCI Rules | 4 |
| Company Law | 2 |
| Environmental Law | 2 |
| Cyber Law | 2 |
| Labour and Industrial Law | 4 |
| Torts, including Motor Vehicles Act and Consumer Protection | 5 |
| Taxation | 4 |
| Contract, Specific Relief, Property Laws, NI Act | 8 |
| Land Acquisition Act | 2 |
| Intellectual Property Laws | 2 |
Two things follow from this table. First, five subjects (Constitution, the two criminal codes, CPC and evidence) carry 46 questions between them, close to half the paper. Second, the syllabus still pairs each old criminal statute with its replacement. The BNS, BNSS and BSA have been in force since 1 July 2024, so answer from the new codes and keep the old number only as a cross-reference in your head.
Can you take bare acts into the AIBE hall?
Yes. The BCI's examination guidelines for AIBE XXI allowed candidates to carry only bare acts without notes and comments. Commentaries, guidebooks, loose papers, phones, smart watches and calculators were barred, and anyone found with unauthorised material was liable to be disqualified.
The phrase "without notes and comments" deserves attention. A pocket edition with an editor's commentary under each section is not a bare act in this sense, and a copy you have filled with your own handwritten notes is risky for the same reason. Buy clean editions early and do all your practice with those exact copies, so that your hands learn where each chapter starts.
The same guidelines required answers to be marked on the OMR sheet with a blue or black ball-point pen and warned that pencil marking would lead to disqualification. They also required the question booklet set code and roll number to be filled correctly, because errors there lead to rejection of the answer sheet. Read the guidelines issued for your own attempt, since they are reissued before each examination.
What score do you need to pass the AIBE?
The qualifying mark is fixed by the BCI for each examination. For AIBE XXI, the BCI's press release of 18 July 2026 recorded that the cut-off was 45 out of 100 for general candidates and 40 for SC, ST and PwD candidates, and that the Monitoring Committee decided to moderate the result by reducing the qualifying marks by three. Treat moderation as an exception you cannot plan for. Aim to finish your mocks well above the published line, because a candidate who scrapes 46 in practice has no margin for a bad morning.
How should you prepare for the AIBE, subject by subject?
Prepare in proportion to the question count, but do not ignore a subject because it carries two questions; two questions are two per cent of the paper.
The procedural block: CPC, BNSS and BSA
These three carry 28 questions together. For the CPC, know the sections that come up in practice: section 9 on jurisdiction of civil courts, section 11 on res judicata, section 80 on notice to the government, and the orders on pleadings, temporary injunctions and execution. For the BNSS, learn where arrest, FIR, investigation and bail sit. A question on Zero FIR, for instance, is answered by section 173 of the BNSS (formerly section 154), which says information about a cognizable offence may be given "irrespective of the area where the offence is committed". For the BSA, master the electronic evidence provision in section 63 (formerly section 65B) and the confession provisions.
The substantive core: Constitution, BNS, family law and the contract cluster
Constitutional law is the single largest subject at 10 questions, and it is mostly answerable from the text of the Constitution plus a short list of leading cases: Kesavananda Bharati, Maneka Gandhi, Puttaswamy, Vishaka. Family law covers personal laws across communities, so a table of marriage, divorce and maintenance provisions under the Hindu Marriage Act, the Special Marriage Act and Muslim law is worth building. The contract cluster (contract, specific relief, property, NI Act) is eight questions spread over four statutes; focus on definitions and remedies.
The small subjects
Professional ethics deserves more care than its four questions suggest, because the answers come straight from the Advocates Act and Part VI of the BCI Rules, and they reward precise reading. Know section 35 of the Advocates Act on punishment for misconduct and the duties an advocate owes to the court, the client and the opponent. Practise these on the professional ethics question sets. For land acquisition, the governing statute is the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, not the 1894 Act.
A six-week plan
A candidate with a law degree already in hand does not need months. Six focused weeks are enough if the bare-act habit is built properly.
- Week 1: Collect clean bare acts for every subject you plan to carry. Read the arrangement of sections of each and mark nothing in them.
- Week 2: Constitution and BNSS. Solve questions with the bare act open, timing how long it takes to find each provision.
- Week 3: CPC and BSA, using the same method.
- Week 4: BNS, family law and the contract cluster.
- Week 5: The small subjects in one pass: ethics, ADR, PIL, administrative law, company, environment, cyber, labour, tax, land acquisition, IP.
- Week 6: Full papers only. Take full-length AIBE mocks under exam conditions and review every wrong answer against the bare act.
How AIBE questions are framed, and where candidates lose marks
Most AIBE questions test whether you know which provision governs a situation, not whether you can reproduce its wording. A typical stem names a fact situation and asks for the section, the forum or the time limit. Suppose a question describes a person who wants to reach a police officer about a theft that happened in another district and asks what the officer must do. A candidate who knows the BNSS structure turns to section 173 and finds the answer in seconds. A candidate who does not starts at section 1.
The common mistakes are predictable:
- Answering from the old code. If the options give both BNS and IPC numbers, read the stem carefully; the newer statute governs offences committed on or after 1 July 2024.
- Spending four minutes on one lookup. If a provision does not surface within a minute, mark your best answer and return.
- Neglecting the two-question subjects. Environment, cyber, company, land acquisition and IP together give ten questions.
- Carelessness on the OMR sheet. The booklet code and roll number errors are entirely avoidable.
Solving the AIBE previous year papers, including the 2026 paper, shows you how often the same provisions return.
Key points to remember
- The AIBE is a 100-question paper over 19 subjects, with the question count per subject fixed in the BCI syllabus.
- Constitution, BNSS and CPC carry 10 questions each; these three plus BNS and BSA make up 46 questions.
- Only bare acts without notes and comments are permitted; practise with the same copies you will carry.
- Final-semester students may sit on an undertaking but must upload an Enrolment Certificate within the BCI's deadline after passing.
- For AIBE XXI the qualifying mark was 45 for general candidates and 40 for SC, ST and PwD candidates, before moderation.
- Answer criminal law questions from the BNS, BNSS and BSA, keeping the old numbers only as a cross-check.
Where to go next
Start with the full-length papers on the AIBE mock test page, and if you want every premium paper for the year, the AIBE pass lists what it includes. Our guide on reading a bare act properly will make your lookups faster. Once you have passed and enrolled, the Legal Firms directory of law firms is a practical place to identify chambers and firms to approach for your first position.