JOIN USThe fiasco around the entrance exams to the law universities could have been avoided, savings thousands of students from needless harassment and uncertainty had there been better coordination between the law schools concerned. The issue arose with the Bengaluru-based National Law School of India University (NLSIU) breaking away from the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT), a centralised entrance exam for 22 law universities in the country. NLSIU decided to hold an online test of its own on the grounds that any further delay in conducting the CLAT due to the pandemic would have resulted in a zero year. NLSIU also decided against accepting CLAT scores for admissions, which was challenged before the Supreme Court by its former vice-chancellor R Venkata Rao and the parent of one of the aspirants who accused the university of trying to create an elitist institution which caters only to those who had the facilities to take the online test, ignoring aspirations of the poor.
The interim order passed by the Supreme Court on September 11, a day before the NLSIU test, did not appreciate the predicament of the students. While refusing to stay the test, the court restrained the university from announcing the results or admitting students until further orders. This, when the court had not yet considered the legality of NLSIU holding the entrance exam online when such a system is not permitted by CLAT. However, on September 22, the court struck down the NLSIU test, which had by then been held, malpractices detected and even a re-test conducted. The court directed that students be admitted only on the basis of CLAT results. Over 23,000 students who appeared for the test on September 12 based on the court’s earlier order will now have to appear for CLAT all over again. Considering that CLAT was anyway scheduled for September 28, the court could have stayed the NLSIU exams instead of giving the go-ahead. The students, both those that took the test and those who couldn’t, could have been spared the unnecessary hardship and anxiety.
While the intention of NLSIUmay be good, it acted in haste and without proper application of mind as it did not even go through the process of consulting the academic council while taking such an important decision. This incident also shows that all is not well within the consortium of law universities, due to which students had to suffer for no fault of theirs. The consortium should put the past behind now and dedicate itself to enhancing the prestige and content of legal education instead of working at cross purposes.