The Supreme Court today asked
Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) 2018 convenor Nuals Kochi to appoint an expert
committee at the earliest to individually look into at least 251 CLAT 2018
candidates’ grievances with the conduct of the entrance exam this year.
Justices AM Khanwilkar and
Navin Sinha heard senior advocate Salman Khurshid for CLAT 2018 candidate Disha
Panchal and five other petitioners who had challenged the exam and asked for a
stay on the results and for a fresh exam, on the ground that they suffered from
precious time lost in answering the paper due to technical glitches in the
conduct of the exam.
Senior advocate V Giri
appeared for Nuals today and placed on record the computer “log reports” of the
petitioners claiming that each of the six petitioners was compensated with
extra time for the exact time lost on account of technical glitches.
Nuals also submitted that out
of over 59,300 candidates who appeared for the CLAT 2018 LLB and LLM entrance
exams, it has received 251 representations so far from aggrieved candidates
claiming that they had suffered on account of errors and glitches in the exam,
the petitioners’ counsel Anand Shankar Jha told us.
This leaves out possibly up to
2,120 other potentially aggrieved candidates, according to a Google form that
had been opened up to responses by a free CLAT tutorial service.
Jha said that the court was of
the prima facie view that there were indeed many glitches in the conduct of the
exam and that Nuals should appoint a mechanism or constitute a committee to
look into each individual grievance.
The judges asked Nuals to
propose before the court tomorrow as to how soon it can constitute such a
committee and what procedure the committee would follow to address candidates’
grievances.
The court also ordered a stay
on the writ proceedings on before five other benches of various high courts by
several CLAT 2018 candidates, i.e. before Rajasthan - Jodhpur and Jaipur,
Punjab & Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi, making their outcome subject to
the decision of the Supreme Court.
Additional solicitor general
appeared for the ministry of human resource development (MHRD), which was also
made a respondent in the case.
Jha said that the hearings in
the matter will now proceed on a day to day basis and the next hearing is
tomorrow.
https://www.legallyindia.com/pre-law-student/clatinsc-nuals-to-propose-mechanism-to-look-into-251-candidates-complaints-as-2000-other-unrepresentated-sc-stays-clat-2018-proceedings-in-all-hcs-20180524-9366
