The National Law School of India University (NLSIU) in Bengaluru is set to go ahead with its plan of conducting its own online entrance test for admissions to the University this year. This is despite a letter from the consortium of National Law Universities asking NLSIU to reconsider its decision.
NLSIU announced on Thursday that it has decided it will not accept the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) scores for admission to the BA LLB (Hons) course for the academic year 2020-21.
NLSIU has chalked out a plan to conduct its own online entrance test on September 12 after inviting applications between September 3 and 10.
University officials in NLSIU told TNM that the primary reason for conducting their own test is the fact that the CLAT exam is yet to be held this year and has been postponed to September 28.
"Our primary concern is the lack of time this year. We want to finish our admission process. It is not a question of not using CLAT scores because if the exam was conducted, we would be using the scores for admissions. But since it has not been conducted yet, we will be going ahead with our own entrance test," a source at the University said.
An emergency meeting of the governing body of the consortium of national law universities was held on Friday and the body unanimously resolved to request NLSIU to reconsider its decision.
"After detailed deliberations, the Governing Body unanimously resolved to request the NLSIU, Bangalore to reconsider its decision of holding its own independent test for this year's admission to BA LLB and LLM. The Governing Body resolved that the decision is in violation of Rule 15.33. of Consortium Bye-laws as all members of the Consortium are duty-bound to admit students only through CLAT," the consortium said in a statement. The details of the consortium's decision were confirmed by Balraj Chauhan, First Vice-Chancellor of Dharmashastra National Law University, Jabalpur, and Convenor of CLAT 2020.
"The Governing Body further resolved that in case NLSIU sticks to its decision, NLSIU cannot remain associated with the CLAT-2020 in any manner and all financial and administrative decisions will have to be taken by Prof. Balraj Chauhan, CLAT-2020 Convener, and the Secretariat of Consortium may be shifted out of NLSIU," the statement added.
A plea was filed in the Jharkhand High Court by five CLAT aspirants questioning NLSIU's decision to hold its own exams and not accept CLAT scores.
The plea said the move is unlawful and arbitrary since NLSIU is a 'permanent member of the National Law Universities consortium'.
However, NLSIU officials told TNM that it had responded to the consortium's reservations and planned to hold its entrance examination called National Law Aptitude Test (NLAT) 2020 on September 12. 120 students will gain admission to NLSIU based on the results of the examination.
"We can say affirmatively that we will go ahead. Students have come forward and signed up to write the examinations. The response has been overwhelming," says an official at NLSIU.
The CLAT examination was originally slated to be held in May but it was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic and lockdown. The examination is now scheduled to be held on September 28.