Committee to look into CLAT-2018 complaints

A grievance redressal committee set up by the National University for Advanced Legal Studies (NUALS) will look into the complaints of the candidates who appeared for CLAT-2018 on a case-to-case basis.

The candidates had complained of facing technical glitches in their online examination apart from issues involving cheating and some centres allowing candidates (examinees) to write their exams beyond the permitted time.

As the NUALS said it has formed a two-member committee to look into the complaints, a vacation bench of Supreme Court judges Justice A.M. Khanwilkar and Justice Indu Malhotra said candidates with any complaint about the difficulties they encountered while appearing for the online exam can approach the panel by 7 p.m. on Sunday.

The order said the Grievance Redressal Committee, headed by the former judge of the Kerala High Court Justice M.R. Hariharan Nair with Santosh Kumar G. as the other member, would in the first instance deal with 250 complaints already filed.

Santosh Kumar is Professor and Head of the Computer Department of Cochin University. The other complaints that would be filed online till 7 p.m. on Sunday will be taken up in the second instance.

The committee will take "appropriate decision" on case to case basis after "due analysis" and will also examine the complaints of the students who have approached the Supreme Court and high courts.

"We make it clear that this order will also enure to the benefit of the petitioners who have filed writ petition in different high courts," the order said.

The court directed the university to file the status report on the outcome of the scrutiny of the complaints by the committee in the court by May 30.

The court also recorded a submission that a dedicated email account will be created for this purpose which will be notified on the official website of CLAT very shortly.

Top court continued the stay of proceedings before the high courts which it had ordered on Thursday.

The NULAS has set up the committee after the top court on Thursday asked it to come up with a solution to redress the complaints of candidates who moved court.

The court had said there should be a mechanism or forum where these complaints could be looked into, on case to case basis, so that candidates are satisfied and called for a holistic solution.

The court's Friday order came on separate pleas by six CLAT candidates who sought direction to quash the CLAT 2018 conducted by NUALS on May 13 and to hold it afresh.

The petitioners prayed for a stay on the publication of final result-cum-merit list till the disposal of their petitions.

They had moved the apex court on May 23 and pleaded that examinees faced many technical problems during the online test, besides poor infrastructure at examination centres and lack of proper guidance from the staff.

The petitioners submitted that candidates across states faced serious problems at almost 200 online examination centres and said the prerequisites of proper electronic and online infrastructure were not made available in the conduct of the exam.

The manner in which the examination was held had jeopardised the future of thousands of students who took the examination, they pleaded.

--IANS

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