AIBEAll India Bar Examination (licensure examination, not an admission test)

The All India Bar Examination is India's licensure exam for lawyers — the legal profession's equivalent of a bar exam — conducted by the Bar Council of India under the Advocates Act, 1961, and applicable to law graduates of academic year 2009–10 onwards, running since then in numbered editions. It is emphatically not a college admission test: it comes after the LLB, once a graduate has enrolled (or provisionally enrolled) as an advocate with a State Bar Council. Clearing it earns the Certificate of Practice, without which an advocate cannot practise before courts; BCI rules require passing the AIBE within two years of provisional enrolment.

The exam is a single offline OMR paper of 100 multiple-choice questions covering roughly 19 subjects from the LLB curriculum — constitutional law, criminal and civil procedure, evidence, contracts, family law, torts, professional ethics and more — with no negative marking and a duration of about three to three-and-a-half hours in recent editions. Qualifying marks in recent editions have been around 45% for general/OBC candidates and 40% for SC/ST and disabled candidates, though the BCI notifies exact rules per edition. Candidates may bring Bare Acts (statute books without notes or commentary) as permitted by the edition's guidelines — a policy that has shifted between open-book and restricted formats over the years, so the current notification must be checked.

AIBE is designed as a minimum-competence filter, not a rank-based competition: there is no merit list, no seat allocation, and no limit on attempts. The paper is offered in English and more than ten regional languages across exam cities nationwide. Eligibility has evolved through litigation — following the Supreme Court's decision in Bar Council of India v. Bonnie Foi Law College (2023), final-year students and graduates awaiting enrolment have been permitted to sit the exam under conditions the BCI notifies. Every practising-law aspirant should treat allindiabarexamination.com and barcouncilofindia.org as the authoritative sources for schedules, syllabus and rules.