NEW DELHI: In a relief to thousands of candidates who appeared for the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT), the Supreme Court on Friday asked the students to make their representation online to a two-member panel set up by the National University of Advanced Legal Studies (NUALS) by 7 pm on May 27.
A bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar and Indu Malhotra was informed by the counsel appearing for the NUALS that the institution had constituted a two-member committee, headed by retired Kerala High Court judge Justice MR Hariharan Nair, which would look into complaints received from students who had appeared for the exam.
The court said that after due analysis of the students’ complaints, the panel would take the appropriate decision on a case-by-case basis.
The bench, which was informed by the NUALS that results of the CLAT 2018 examination will be declared on May 31, directed that the status report of the complaints and their redressal be placed before it on May 30.
The bench said the representation by students would be sent to a dedicated email id. The court was hearing pleas filed by six candidates who appeared for the CLAT, seeking a direction to quash the examination and hold it afresh.
The pleas alleged that the candidates faced several technical problems during the online test, besides poor infrastructure at examination centres and lack of proper guidance from staff. They had also sought an interim stay on the publication of the final result until the court gave a decision on their plea.
The students complained that due to the technical issues, there was a significant loss of crucial time as each candidate was expected to solve 200 questions in two hours. The court had on Thursday restrained all the high courts from entertaining any fresh plea and hearing the pending ones on the issue.
The bench had then asked NUALS to apprise it of a grievance redressal mechanism, if any, to deal with the 251 complaints filed by several candidates against the CLAT-2018 and said that there had to be a system in place to look into them.
CLAT 2018 ISSUE: