SC rejects plea to cancel CLAT

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 30

The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a plea for the cancellation of CLAT-2018, paving the way for declaration of results that would form the basis for admission to 19 top law colleges in the country.

Around 54,000 candidates had taken the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) 2018 conducted by National University of Advanced Legal Studies (NUALS), Kochi, on May 13 with the help of Sify Technologies Ltd for the admission to LLB and the results are likely to be declared on Thursday.

A vacation Bench headed by Justice LN Rao, however, asked the grievance redressal committee headed by a former high court judge to submit its report on June 6 after considering the complaints of CLAT-2018 aspirants, who alleged technical glitches during the test. As many as 29 law aspirants had moved the top court seeking cancellation of CLAT-2018, alleging gross mismanagement and technical glitches.

Contending that CLAT was a merit-based competitive examination, the petitioners had submitted that their rank would drastically vary even based on a score gap of one or two marks. In such a test with a limited time frame of 120 minutes, loss of time due to technical issues may render the entire effort of the petitioners futile. 

The petitioners alleged that some candidates were given extra time on account of technical glitches, which amounted to violation of their right to equality and vitiated the idea of merit.

But the SC rejected their demand to cancel CLAT 2018 and hold a re-test after senior Counsel V Giri, representing NUALS, produced a report of the grievance redressal committee, headed by Kerala High Court former judge Hariharan Nair, regarding 162 representations made by candidates adversely affected. The committee is expected to devise a formula to compensate candidates who were actually deprived of an equal opportunity.

Report on june 6 

• The SC Bench asked the grievance redressal committee headed by a former high court judge to submit its report on June 6 after considering the complaints of CLAT-2018 aspirants, who alleged technical glitches during the test
• As many as 29 law aspirants had moved the top court seeking cancellation of CLAT-2018, alleging gross mismanagement and technical glitches