Those who excitedly jumped in to register for the tenth All India Bar Exam (AIBE), that was “tentatively” postponed by a month to 26 March after registrations opened 12 days late on 16 January, weren’t set to go after all, according to a notification on the official AIBE website.

According to the notification:

Candidates who have registered for AIBE X till midnight 19th January 2017 are requested to login to their account and reprint the new challan before proceeding to any Branch of State Bank of India. Any inconvenience caused is regretted.

We are not yet sure what the difference in the challan is, but we have been told that the online registration process for this AIBE remains as cumbersome as ever, so perhaps not very many people would have managed to get it all done before the 19th.

In line with the worst of central government websites, the sign-up form is a series of arbitrary hoops and bad design practices that candidates will have to navigate.

According to a screenshot sent to us by a candidate, photographs of the candidate and of their signature must each be exactly between 10KB and 50KB in size, while a picture of the “attested enrollment certificate” and “Gov’t Attested Photo Id” must each be exactly between 50KB and 500KB in size.

All are likely to require significant image editing and resizing of the pictures until they are the right file size.

The application form also has other idiosyncrasies, such as not accepting any capital letters when inputting addresses or educational qualifications.

The AIBE has been run by the Bar Council of India (BCI) in collaboration with ITES Horizon Pvt Ltd, a private company that was selected for the multi-crore contract by the BCI under dubious circumstances and despite having failed to qualify on several grounds by BCI chairman Manan Kumar Mishra. It is not known whether ITES has been reinstructed after the contract has lapsed.

In the meantime, “instructions” for the AIBE application process have also now been issued by the BCI, which note in its terms & conditions section that refunds are not possible and the BCI can change the exam dates again any time:

1) Fees once submitted /paid towards AIBE registration is non- refundable under any circumstances

2) No study Material will be provided.

…

5) Council reserves the right to extend the said examination date in case of

unavoidable circumstances.

6) In case the examination date is changed and if a candidate is unable to appear for the examination, the candidate should inform the same within 10 days of release of such dates.

The tenth AIBE had been postponed by a month last week, from 26 February 2017, to a “tentative” date of 26 March 2017.

Please share any reports of your AIBE experience in the comments or with us directly via email.