9Qualifications and admission of advocates

¹ (1) The Bar Council may, with the previous sanction of the High Court, make rules to regulate the admission of persons to be advocates of the High Court:

Provided that such rules shall not limit or in any way affect the power of the High Court to refuse admission to any person at its discretion.

¹ (2) In particular and without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing power, such rules shall provide for the following matters, namely:—

(a) the qualifications to be possessed by persons applying for admission as advocates;

(b) the form and manner in which applications shall be made to the High Court for admission;

(c) the giving of notice by the High Court to the Bar Council of all such applications;

(d) the hearing by the High Court of any objection preferred on behalf of the Bar Council to the admission of any applicant; and

(e) the charging of fees payable to the Bar Council in respect of enrolment.

¹ (3) Rules made under this section shall provide that no woman shall be disqualified for admission to be an advocate by reason only of her sex.

(4) Nothing in this section or in any other provision of this Act shall be deemed to limit or in any way affect the powers of the High Courts of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal and at Bombay to prescribe the qualifications to be possessed by persons applying to practise in those High Courts respectively in the exercise of their original jurisdiction or the powers of those High Courts to grant or refuse, as they think fit, any such applications ² [or to prescribe the conditions under which such person shall be entitled to practice or plead.]