SC refuses to stall declaration of CLAT-2018 merit list on Thursday

The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to stall the declaration of the CLAT-2018 merit list and consequent counselling with a rider that the entire exercise will be subject to the outcome of the petitions pending before it.

The Common Law Admission Test 2018 merit list will be out on Thursday. The results were declared on May 31.

The apex court's decision came as the Kochi-based National University of Advanced Legal Studies (NUALS) opposed the plea seeking the restraining order.

The court also directed that the Grievance Redressal Committee's (GRC) report submitted before it on Wednesday in a sealed cover, be made available to all the parties before it, including the petitioners.

The GRC headed by former Kerala High Court Judge M.R. Hariharan Nair along with Professor Santosh Kumar was set-up on May 25 on the directions of the top court to look into all complaints by the petitioners.

The court has been hearing a batch of petitions by students who sought the scrapping of the CLAT-2018 online exam held on May 13.

They said there were technical glitches during the exam. There were also allegations of cheating as some centres gave excess time to some students to make up for the lost time on account of the glitches in operating the computers.

The top court had on May 30 given its nod for the declaration of CLAT-2018 results as it had given more time to the GRC to probe the complaints.

Initially 251 complaints were received by the NUALS till May 23, and there were 25 petitioners who had knocked at the doors of the Supreme Court and five high courts seeking cancellation and re-conducting fresh exams.

The court had also permitted other students to approach the GRC and submit their complaints online by 7 p.m. on May 27.

The matter will next be heard on June 11.

--IANS

pk/in/bg