Supreme Court quashes conduct of NLAT 2020, admissions to NLSUI Bangalore on the basis on CLAT 2020

The Supreme Court on Monday quashed the decision to conduct a separate entrance examination through the National Legal Aptitude Test (NLAT) at the National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bengaluru.

 The court directed the NLU consortium to conduct the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) on September 28 as per all health guidelines. The consortium has been instructed to publish CLAT results as soon as possible so that universities can begin their classes by mid-October.

 NLSIU is directed to accept students for the current academic year only based on CLAT.

A bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan, Justice R. Subhash Reddy and Justice MR Shah reserved judgment on the petition challenging the NLAT on 17 September. The petition was filed by Rakesh Kumar Aggarwal, father of a candidate and Professor R Venkata Rao (former vice-chancellor of NLSIU), was challenged the decision by NLSIU to opt out of the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) and conduct a separate entrance examination.

 The exam, which was an AI-prevalent online exam, was held on 12 September amid widespread complaints of technical glitches and manipulation. On 14 September, NLSIU conducted a re-examination for candidates who submitted technical complaints. But there were complaints of paper leaking during the re-examination. NLSIU ensured that the integrity of the exam would not be affected by paper leaks.

By Priya Kumari