Almost every AIBE guide will tell you the law of tort is worth 5 questions. Read the Bar Council's row again. Those 5 questions are shared between tort, the Motor Vehicles Act and consumer protection.
Tort on its own has averaged 2.0 questions across the five newest papers. In AIBE XX and AIBE XXI it was one question each. If you have budgeted five marks of revision to maxims and leading cases, you have over-budgeted tort and given nothing to the two statutes in the same row.
The short version
- The Bar Council of India's syllabus does not have a tort row. It has one row worth 5 covering tort, the Motor Vehicles Act and consumer protection together.
- That whole row delivered 23 questions across the newest five papers, an average of 4.6. Three of those five papers delivered exactly 5. The row is honest.
- Tort by itself delivered 10 of those 23, an average of 2.0 a paper.
- The split inside the row swings hard. AIBE XXI and AIBE XX asked 1 tort question each. AIBE XIX asked 4 tort questions and nothing at all from the other two.
- Not one of the eight recent tort stems we examined cites a section of any Act. They are Latin maxims, leading cases and one jurist's definition.
- So a Bare Act cannot answer the tort part of this row. It answers most of the rest of it.
What the Bar Council says this subject is worth
The current syllabus is a one page table titled "Syllabus for All India Bar Exam-XXI", published on the official exam site on 2 March 2026. This is its row, reproduced exactly as printed, spelling and all:
| Topic / Subject | Questions |
|---|---|
| Law of Tort, including Motor Vehicle Act and Consumer Protection Law | 5 |
One row, three bodies of law, five questions between them. This is a bundle, and the Bar Council does the same thing elsewhere on the table: contract shares a row of 8 with specific relief, property laws and the Negotiable Instrument Act.
Anyone who prints "Law of Tort: 5 questions" in a weightage chart has dropped two thirds of the row. So every number here is either the whole row or clearly labelled as tort alone.
Notice the wording too. The row names the Motor Vehicle Act and Consumer Protection Law. For tort it names nothing, and that turns out to describe the questions exactly.
The same table was published for AIBE XX on 27 September 2025, identical row for row.
What 19 real papers actually show
The Bar Council publishes the past papers and the official answer keys. It does not publish which question belongs to which subject. So we classified all 1,900 questions in our 19 papers ourselves, reading by hand every question a pattern could not settle. To compare like with like, we then added our tort, motor vehicles and consumer protection counts back together into the Bar Council's own row.
The row, by era:
| Papers | Questions in the whole row | Average per paper | Against the stated 5 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oldest seven, AIBE III to IX (2012 to 2016) | 38 | 5.4 | +0.4 |
| Middle seven, AIBE X to XVI (2017 to 2021) | 35 | 5.0 | 0.0 |
| Newest five, AIBE XVII to XXI (2023 to 2026) | 23 | 4.6 | -0.4 |
| All 19 papers | 96 | 5.1 | +0.1 |
Five means five. Across 19 papers the row has averaged 5.1 against a published 5, and the middle era hit it exactly.
Now open the bundle up. This is the newest five papers, split three ways:
| Paper | Tort | Motor Vehicles | Consumer | Whole row |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AIBE XXI, 2026 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 5 |
| AIBE XX, 2025 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 5 |
| AIBE XIX, 2024 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 4 |
| AIBE XVIII, 2023 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 5 |
| AIBE XVII, 2023 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 4 |
| Average | 2.0 | 1.0 | 1.6 | 4.6 |
Look at AIBE XIX in 2024. Four tort questions and not a single one on either statute. Now look at the two papers either side of it, where tort supplied one question and the two statutes supplied four.
The row is predictable. What is inside it is not. That is the practical finding on this page.
Across all 19 papers, tort alone ranges from 0, in AIBE X in 2017, to 4, which happened in AIBE XIX, XIII, VIII and VI. That range is why you cannot revise this row by picking one of its three parts.
Has this changed between the oldest papers and the newest five
The row has barely moved. Tort's share of it has shrunk, and the shrinkage is all tort's.
| Average per paper | Oldest seven | Middle seven | Newest five |
|---|---|---|---|
| Law of tort | 2.7 | 2.3 | 2.0 |
| Motor Vehicles Act | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.0 |
| Consumer protection | 1.6 | 1.6 | 1.6 |
| Whole row | 5.4 | 5.0 | 4.6 |
Tort's drift from 2.7 to 2.0 is the entire difference between the row's 5.4 in the old papers and its 4.6 in the new ones. The other two have not moved in fourteen years.
One thing has changed inside the consumer third, and it changes what you revise. Every consumer stem we hold from AIBE XVII onwards names the Consumer Protection Act, 2019. If you are revising from notes built on the older Act, the section numbers you learn will be the wrong ones.
What actually gets asked
These are real tort questions from the newest five papers, quoted exactly as printed.
Which of the following statements is not an example of the eggshell skull rule as per the law of torts?
Gloucester Grammar School case relates to which of the following important maxims?
The principle of "Ubi jus ibi idem remedium" was recognized in
We looked closely at eight tort stems, from AIBE XV to AIBE XXI. One fact matters more than everything else on this page.
Not one of the eight cites a section of any Act. They ask which maxim a case relates to, which case a maxim was recognised in, which decision a rule is based on, who defined tort in a given set of words, and what a court held in a named judgment. The Bar Council's row named no Act for tort, and the questions behave accordingly.
The same case came up in two consecutive papers. AIBE XVII and AIBE XVIII, both sat in 2023, both asked about the Gloucester Grammar School case, and both asked which maxim it relates to. If you have one hour for tort, spend it on a list of the named cases and the maxim attached to each.
The recurring shapes are the classics. Across those eight: the eggshell skull rule, the maxim behind Gloucester Grammar School, the maxim about a right and a remedy, the decision that strict liability rests on, the case that laid down the rule of last opportunity, and what the Supreme Court held in M.C. Mehta v. Union of India, the Sri Ram Fertilizers case.
The other two thirds look nothing like this. The Motor Vehicles Act questions ask which provision relates to no fault liability, the fixed compensation payable on a death under it, and which section and rule make a PUC certificate mandatory. The consumer questions ask what the Central Consumer Protection Council consists of under Section 3(2), where an appeal from a District Commission lies under Section 41, and the value above which the National Commission has jurisdiction. Every one is a printed fact in a statute.
What to revise, and what to skip
Learn the maxims and the cases as pairs. The case, the maxim, the rule it laid down. That is the form the tort questions take, in both directions, and there is no other way to get those two marks.
Give the two statutes at least as much time as tort. They supplied 13 of the 23 questions in this row across the newest five papers, and in AIBE XX and AIBE XXI they supplied four of the five. They are also the easy marks, because the answers are printed.
Check your consumer notes are on the 2019 Act. Commission structure, jurisdiction thresholds, appeal routes, the list of consumer rights.
Skip reading a tort textbook. This row is worth 5 and tort's share of it is worth 2. A textbook's contents page has more chapters than this row has questions.
Skip the fine detail of any single tort. The questions ask what something is called and where it came from, not how to apply it to facts.
Does this subject earn space in your bag
For tort itself, no book will help you.
Every one of the eight tort stems we examined turns on a maxim, a case name or a definition. There is no section to look up, because the Bar Council's own row names no Act for tort. Whatever is on your desk, the tort questions are answered from memory or they are not answered. Knowing that before you pack is worth more than the count: these two marks have to be earned in advance.
For the other two thirds of the row, the answer flips. The Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 and the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 are both thin books, and both sets of questions are printed facts: amounts, thresholds, which section covers what. Between them they averaged 2.6 questions a paper across the newest five, which is more than tort delivered, and unlike tort they are lookups. On marks per gram they are a reasonable carry once the big codes are in.
One limit on that advice: no Bar Council document we have found lists which titles count as a Bare Act, so which books you bring is a judgement about weight and desk space, not a rule you can point to.
One rule about the copies you take. The Bar Council's Examination Guidelines say candidates may carry "only BARE ACTS (without notes and comments)". Possession of anything else in the hall is itself a stated risk, not just using it. We have written the carry-in rules up in full, including the second Bar Council document that softens them and the things no document mentions at all, in what you can carry into the AIBE.
What these numbers do not tell you
- The classification is ours, and this row is the hardest one to classify. A compensation claim after a road accident can be filed as tort or as Motor Vehicles Act, and where we drew that line moves both counts. The whole row total of 96 questions is solid. The split inside it is our judgement, which is very probably why the Bar Council bundled the three in the first place.
- One set per edition. Each AIBE paper is printed in four sets, A to D. We hold one set for each edition, mostly Set A. We cannot show whether the other sets ask the same questions in a different order, so we do not claim it.
- Eight stems is a sample. The "no sections" pattern comes from eight questions across four papers, out of the 45 tort questions we counted. It is a strong pattern and it is still a sample.
- Counts are not difficulty. Two questions a paper that you have to know from memory can cost more than five you can look up.
Where these facts come from
The syllabus row is the Bar Council's own, quoted exactly, including its spelling of "Motor Vehicle Act", from Syllabus for All India Bar Exam-XXI, published on the official exam site on 2 March 2026 and identical to the AIBE XX syllabus of 27 September 2025. The carry-in wording is from the Examination Guidelines for AIBE XXI, published 20 February 2026.
The question counts are ours. They come from 19 real AIBE past papers held on munotes, 1,900 questions in total, classified by us and counted on 23 September 2026, then rolled up into the Bar Council's row before comparison. The three quoted stems are reproduced exactly as printed: AIBE XXI question 26, AIBE XVIII question 81 and AIBE XVII question 27. The other tort stems referred to are AIBE XVIII question 80, AIBE XVII question 28, AIBE XVI questions 80 and 81, and AIBE XV question 57. The statute examples are AIBE XXI questions 58 and 90, AIBE XX question 3, AIBE XVIII question 82, AIBE XX question 75, AIBE XVII questions 29 and 35. We have rounded nothing up.
What to do next
The next exam is AIBE XXII on 29 November 2026. Registration opened on 19 August 2026 and closes on 27 October 2026.
Write out the named cases and their maxims on one sheet of paper today, because that sheet cannot come into the hall with you and its whole job is to be in your head by 29 November. Then spend the rest of this row's revision time on the two statutes, where the marks are printed and you can carry the page.
Then check the split for yourself on a real paper. All 19 AIBE previous year question papers are on munotes as timed practice: 100 questions, a three hour timer, and answers taken from the Bar Council's official keys. Lifetime access to all 19 is Rs 499, paid once.