How to Mark and Tab Bare Acts for the Open Book AIBE

Check the rule before you mark anything: reports say the AIBE allows bare acts without notes, and that copies marked with ink, highlighter or pasted tabs are often rejected at the centre, even though the underlying act is permitted. For AIBE XXII (29 November 2026, as reported), the safe plan is to carry clean copies and train yourself to find sections fast using the act’s own contents and index.

What the rules say, as reported

Coaching and news sources describe the paper’s instruction as “Bare Acts without notes are allowed”, with bare acts that carry short notes allowed only at the invigilator’s discretion, and with guides, textbooks, commentaries and annotated editions not allowed. Printouts of acts as published in the Official Gazette and bare indexes of acts are also reported as permitted. The same sources note that centres have rejected marked copies. We could not find a notification that sets out a single national rule on highlighting or tabs, so treat marking as risky unless your admit card or the Bar Council of India instructions for AIBE XXII say otherwise. Read them the day your admit card is out (expected on or after 14 November at allindiabarexamination.com).

A two-copy system

• Practice copy: the one you may annotate. Use it to learn the structure of each act, find your weak areas and practise.
• Exam copy: a clean copy of the same edition, with the same page numbers, that you carry into the hall.

Buying two copies of the same publisher’s edition means page numbers match, so what you learn on the practice copy transfers to the clean one.

Which acts to carry

Carry the acts that carry the most marks and that you cannot recall by heart. In the reported distribution those are the Constitution, BNS, BNSS, BSA, CPC, Contract and Specific Relief, Transfer of Property, NI Act and the Advocates Act with the Bar Council of India Rules. A smaller bag is better, because flipping through ten volumes costs time. Check that every act you carry is the current text: the new criminal laws replaced the IPC, CrPC and Evidence Act, and an older bare act will give the wrong section numbers. If you do carry a combined volume, make sure it has no commentary.

Learn the geography of each act

Without tabs, speed comes from knowing where things are:

• Constitution: Part III (Articles 12 to 35), Part IV (36 to 51), Part IVA (51A), Part V (Union), Part VI (States), and the Schedules. Know roughly which page range each Part falls in.
• BNS: general explanations and exceptions early, offences against the body mid-way, property offences after.
• BNSS: investigation and arrest at the start, trial and bail in the middle, appeals and miscellaneous at the end.
• CPC: the body of the code (sections) comes first, then Orders and Rules in the First Schedule.

Spend 20 minutes on each act flipping to ten provisions you name aloud. Repeat on three different days.

Build a section-number sheet

Because notes are not allowed in the hall, the best use of your hand-written work is memory: make a one-page list for each subject with the sections that appear again and again. For example: BNS 100, 101 and 103 (culpable homicide, murder, punishment), BNS 303 (theft), BNS 316 (criminal breach of trust), BNS 318 (cheating), BNSS 173 (FIR), BNSS 187 (remand), BNSS 482 (anticipatory bail), CPC Sections 9, 10, 11, NI Act Section 138. Reread the list daily in the last week. Keep it out of the hall.

If your admit card allows tabs or marking

If official instructions permit it, use a light method: small flags that sit at the edge, one colour per subject, labelled only with the Article or section number. Do not write notes or case names. Even then, check at the gate, because the invigilator has the final say. If you are turned away at the gate, you lose a day of prep time, so avoid the risk.

A fast lookup technique

1. Read the question and identify the Act and the topic before opening the book.
2. Guess the section range from your sense of the act’s layout.
3. Open to the nearest contents page or section heading and move forward or back.
4. Read the exact words and select the option that fits them, not the one that fits your memory.

Set a hard limit of 90 seconds per lookup. If it takes longer, mark the question, move on and return later.

What to practise this week

In your timed mocks, use the clean copy only. Practise at least one full paper exactly as you will on the day, with the physical books, and record how often you reached for them and how long each lookup took. Lexfolio’s AIBE XXII mock tests include a guide to open book strategy, covering which bare acts to carry and how to index them, with five 100 question mocks. For the overall week, see the last 7 days plan.

Final checklist for the bag

• Printed admit card and valid photo ID.
• Clean, current bare acts with no notes, no loose papers.
• Permitted stationery only, as listed on the admit card.

If a centre asks you to remove something

Stay calm. Do not argue at the gate. If a flag or sticker is the problem, remove it if you can, or use the spare clean copy. This is why carrying a clean second copy of the one or two acts you rely on most is worth the weight. If you are told that a book is not allowed, ask politely for the instruction in writing or point to the admit card; if the invigilator still refuses, follow the decision and make a note to raise it with the AIBE helpdesk afterward.

Do not rely on someone else’s experience

Stories from earlier AIBE sittings differ widely: some candidates report no checking, others report strict checking of every page. Treat every story as a warning, not a rule. Your preparation should work under the strictest version.