The Bar Council of India (BCI) has announced that certificates of practice (COPs) for All India Bar Exam (AIBE) candidates from 23 states are now apparently available, nine months after holding the exam in March 2016, and seven months after results had been published in May 2016.

However, the COPs for around 3,500 candidates have been withheld, according to a notification on the official website.

Around 432 candidates’ COPs have been “withheld by photo and signature” or both, which presumably means that COPs were withheld due to “non availability of photo and signature / Documents”, according to a note on its website published today.

A further 3,067 candidates’ COPs have been “withheld by enrollment” (sic) according to the list of COPs withheld for the ninth AIBE.

We have reached out to comment to the official AIBE email address and to BCI chairman Manan Kumar Mishra for an explanation of what withheld by enrolment means but have received no response.

Note: If you can shed some light on what this means or your experience of the process, please share in the comments below, or mark not-for-publication if you wish to leave an anonymous tip.

Another 25 candidates’ COPs for the previous four AIBEs held over the last few years have also not been issued yet due to having been withheld, according to the official website’s update.

The BCI has not disclosed any data of how many applicants took or passed the most recent AIBE, though an irate AIBE help line operator had told Legally India in May that 40,000 answer sheets were being checked for AIBE 9.

If that number is accurate, that would mean that COPs had been withheld from 9% of total candidates; alternatively, if assuming a pass rate of 75%, a total of 12% of successful candidates for some reason would not get an automatic COP.

The official website has explained how COPs could be procured for those for whom they are available:

“ The COP for AIBE-IX for the below mentioned states have been released and it is available for distribution at the respective state bar council. Candidate are requested to collect their CERTIFICATE OF PRACTICE (COP) from their respective state bar council “

1 ANDHRA PRADESH

2 ASSAM

3 BIHAR

4 CHHATTISGARH

6 GUJARAT

7 HIMACHAL PRADESH

8 JAMMU & KASHMIR

9 JHARKHAND

10 KARNATAKA

11 KERALA

12 MAHARASHTRA & GOA

13 MANIPUR

14 MEGHALAYA

15 MADHYA PRADESH

16 ODISSA

17 PUNJAB & HARYANA

18 RAJASTHAN

19 TAMIL NADU

20 TRIPURA

21 UTTAR PRADESH

22 UTTARKHAND

23 WEST BENGAL