Five CLAT aspirants have filed a writ petition before the Jharkhand High Court against NLSIU holding NLAT 2020. The petition has been filed stating that the decision made by NLSIU to conduct a separate exam for admissions to the five year BA LLB (Hons) program and One Year LLM program is unlawful and arbitrary as it is a permanent member of the NLU consortium.
On September 03, 2020, NLSIU had made an announcement regarding its decision to hold a separate online entrance test for BA LLB admissions because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The new test National Law Aptitude Test or NLAT is proposed to be held only for the academic year 2020-21. Read More.
NLAT 2020 is scheduled for September 12, 2020 in lieu of CLAT 2020 scheduled for September 28, 2020.
The petitioners made a stance that NLSIU rolled out the decision to hold NLAT after the CLAT 2020 forms were filled by the candidates. This is in violation of the principle of promissory estoppel.
They further stated that the university’s decision of declaring a new date of entrance and a new exam pattern around 10 days before the date of examination is illegal and against SC’s precedent of conduct of "fair and just examination”.
Moreover, it is also violative of clause 15.7 i.e., voluntary withdrawal of member institutions of the bye-laws of the Consortium of National Law Universities.
The petition filed through Advocate Shubham Gautam and Baibhaw Gehlaut prays for reversing the notification issued by NLSIU.
BREAKING: Petition filed against the National Law School of India University before the High Court of Jharkhand against breaking away from CLAT and conducting NLAT. @NLSIUofficial @SBAnlsiu #NLAT pic.twitter.com/YTBctdZRwl
— Bar & Bench (@barandbench) September 4, 2020
It is also noted that Prof Faizan Mustafa, Vice-Chancellor of NALSAR had expressed his dismay at NLSIU’s decision to hold NLAT while still being a member of the NLU Consortium. He stated that the decision is in violation of the Consortium’s bye-laws.
It is further informed that the Consortium will be meeting today to decide the future course of action.
Check NLAT 2020: Syllabus and Paper Format for admissions at NLSIU