Amid controversies surrounding technical glitches playing havoc for students who had attempted the National Law Aptitude Test (NLAT 2020), the entrance exam of the National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bengaluru, many students complained that the question paper for Monday’s retest was leaked, Bar and Bench reported. The website reportedly got a copy of the question paper around 1 pm on Monday, while the retest was going on. NLSIU, however, has called the claims of the paper being leaked ‘unfounded.’
NLSIU’s entrance test for undergraduate programmes NLAT was held on Saturday, during which many candidates complained of technical glitches. The test was designed to be taken online in their own homes, facilitated by specific software by the university. Taking the complaints into consideration, NLSIU had announced that the NLAT 2020 will be conducted again on Monday for those who had suffered due to the glitches.
Bar and Bench stated that the copy it had received around 1 pm had the exact same questions that the students who wrote the NLAT on Monday between 12.30 pm and 1.15 pm had to answer.
The NLSIU, in its statement titled 'Unfounded claims of NLAT UG 2020 paper leak' issued on Monday, said that the questions in circulation appeared to have been copied and circulated by some students after they had logged into the testing system. “While this is a malpractice under the NLAT proctoring guidelines, it does not affect the integrity of the exam as questions were already available to all candidates after login,” the university added.
NLSIU also stated that the technology platform tracks the behaviour patterns exhibited by the candidates while answering the paper, and noted that candidates with unusual behavioural patterns will be identified and disqualified.
The NLSIU announced NLAT 2020 as the qualifying test for students aspiring for a seat in the university for undergraduate studies. The university decided on a separate entrance exam, a deviation from the Common Law Admissions Test (CLAT), due to delay and uncertainty over the dates of CLAT in 2020. NLSIU announced that 94% of the candidates who had registered for NLAT 2020 had attended the test on Saturday.