Hon’ble SC came with its verdict and said that NLAT
Hon’ble SC came with its verdict and said that NLAT has been scrapped. The admission therefore in NLSIU will take place only based on the CLAT score. There is absolutely no change in the schedule of CLAT. CLAT will take place on Sept 28th and the entire admission process shall be finalized by October Mid.
The petition was filed by Former Vice Chancellor of NLSIU Prof. R Venkat Rao and parent of one of the law aspirant, challenging the decision taken by the NLSIU to step back out of CLAT and to conduct its individual test similar to CLAT i.e. NLAT, by reason that it was “Uniquely disadvantaged” because of the repeated postponement of CLAT examination.
The petitioners were represented by Senior Advocates Nidhesh Gupta and Gopal Sankarnarayanan while the NLSIU and its VC were represented by Senior Advocates Arvind Datar and Sajan Poovayya respectively.
The Petitioner also submitted that NLSIU’s decision for a separate test put thousands of candidates to severe hardship, as they were under the expectation that preparation for CLAT will suffice for admission to the NLSIU as well.
The Bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan, R Subhash Reddy and MR Shah had reserved judgment in the matter on September 17 after giving the case an extensive hearing. Earlier, the Court had allowed NLSIU to conduct the contentious NLAT; however, the Apex Court had held that the results would be declared subject to the decision of the Court.
Further, the Court has directed that NLSIU be reinstated to the Secretariat of the NLU Consortium, and that its Vice-Chancellor Prof Sudhir Krishnaswamy be given back his post of Secretary-Treasurer of the Consortium.
The petitioners made allegations that the examination lacked transparency and it cannot be termed a successful one by the widest stretch of imagination and argued that “It was not an exam for merit but for someone’s competency in Manipulation”.
NLSIU and its Vice-Chancellor Prof Sudhir Krishnaswamy filed affidavits justifying the conduct of its exam, questioning the maintainability of the plea before the Supreme Court, and urging for the writ petition to be dismissed with exemplary costs.
The Court was urged to quash the September 3 notification announcing the conduct of NLAT for NLSIU admissions this year. Another prayer made was for quashing of NLSIU’s notification regarding the technical requirements to write NLAT and for a direction to the University to accept students this year on the basis of CLAT scores.
The aspirants are now relieved after SC verdict as to which exam is to be held and also previous exam held by NLSIU i.e. NLAT will now serve as kind of a practice test for the students.
