The Supreme Court of India has ruled that State Bar Councils need not and cannot charge any fee as an optional fee, on the graduates of the law course, when they are enrolled. A Bench headed by Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Prasanna B. Varale made it clear that the enrolment fee prescribed under the Advocates Act, 1961, and the Bar Council of India (BCI) Rules is a prescribed fee of 750 and 150, respectively, to the State Bar Council and the BCI. Any extra charge that someone wants to call, say a voluntary or optional fee, will be outside the statutory directive and thus unlawful. The petitions were being argued in the Court against the practice of Bar Councils levying of charges during enrolment to be used toward welfare funds, library development, buildings, etc. The Bench noted that forcing law graduates to pay these amounts against their statutory right to enroll amounts to nothing less than infringement of their rights. The judgment upholds transparency, mitigates the financial strain on the young lawyers, and enrolment is to be tightly controlled by the law and not through the discretionary requirements of the council.