HC seeks Centre, BCI reply on ABVP, law students plea agst CLAT-2018

The Delhi High Court today sought response of the Centre and the BCI on a plea by the ABVP and two law students challenging the "inconsistently and negligently" conducted Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) held recently.

Justice Rekha Palli issued notice to the ministries of law and justice and human resources development, Bar Council of India, CLAT working committee and implementation committee and the National University of Advanced Legal Studies (NUALS).

Senior advocate Chetan Sharma, appearing for the petitioners, sought quashing of the CLAT-2018, contending that there were mismanagement and incompetency of the national law universities in conducting the examination on a rotational basis.

The petition, filed through advocate Namit Saxena, sought the court's intervention against the "inconsistent, negligent, sub-standard and inefficient" conduct of CLAT which was organised by its working committee, implementation committee and the NUALS on May 13.

During the hearing, the court observed that the Union of India should do something about the issue.

"We get people from there only. You (Centre) get the system on order. Its rotating every year," the judge said.

The court also sought response of the authorities on the application seeking stay on all further proceedings in CLAT 2018, including declaration of result.

It listed the matter for further hearing on May 30 while the CLAT results are expected to be declared on May 31.

The petition also sought direction to appoint an independent body for conducting the examination afresh.

The exam is conducted for the purpose of admission to undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in law offered at premier national law schools of the country.

Besides the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the two petitioners are Vibhav Chandra and Mangesh Mani, who had appeared for the exam and faced problems, including technical glitches.

The petition said there had been repeated failures and technical glitches every year in the conduct of CLAT and students were currently facing a threat to their career due to failure of the authorities.

"This year's CLAT (2018) examination has been worst of all the CLAT examinations held till date. From glitches which started right from the application process till the stage when the students, as some places, were not given or allowed the assigned time to complete their examination," it alleged.

It also challenged the rotational conduct of CLAT examination and sought to constitute an autonomous body to conduct such prestigious examination.

The petitioners also challenged "arbitrary and unprofessional conduct" of such national law universities.

It alleged that there was violation of fundamental rights of the appearing candidates for fair examination and sought a thorough inquiry into the way the examination was conducted.

The plea further sought a direction to the central government through the Ministry of Law and Justice or the Ministry of Human Resource Development or any other autonomous organisation such as the UPSC or SSC or BCI or CBSE to take over the conduction of CLAT.

As an interim measure, it sought a stay on all further proceedings in CLAT, 2018, including declaration of result. It also prayed for restraining the CLAT committee for this year from tampering with any evidence of reported or unreported mismanagement.