BENGALURU: National Law School of India university begins process of refunding entrance exam fee to aspirants who wrote the recent NLAT. It also said that based on the decision of the Supreme Court, the institute will admit students for the academic year 2020-21 based on results of CLAT and not NLAT.
The Supreme court, earlier on Monday, quashed the institute's notification for a separate entrance exam ‘The National Law Aptitude Test-2020’ (NLAT) for admission to its five year integrated BA LLB (Hons).
The bench comprising Justices Ashok Bhushan, RS Reddy and MR Shah said that the admissions in all 22 National Law Universities (NLUs) should be in accordance with CLAT - 2020 which is scheduled to be held on September 28. The NLUs should start their academic session by mid October, the bench added.
The bench pronounced the judgement quashing the notification on the petition filed by Prof R Venkata Rao, former vice chancellor of NLSIU.
The bench, on September 11 2020, had permitted NLSIU Bengaluru to hold NLAT-2020 as scheduled on September 12 but restrained the varsity from announcing the result and admitting the students during the pendency of the petition.
After hearing the parties on the petition, the bench has reserved the verdict on September 17 and pronounced it on Monday.
Terming the NLAT 2020 a 'separate entrance test,' the petitioner questioned it before the apex court.
NLSIU, this year, had disassociated itself from the CLAT which is conducted by the Consortium of National Law Universities, to hold its own entrance for admissions to undergraduate and post graduate law courses. It cited its trimester system as the reason. The NLAT recorded an attendance of 94 percent (23,225) candidates for its UG programme and 97 percent (2846) candidates for its PG programme.
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"We have begun working with their vendors to initiate refunds to all studens. Students may expect refunds after a dedcution of Rs 75 as applica,tion processing charges, to reach them in the next 9 to 14 working days," the institute said in a note on Monday evening.
At the faculty meeting held earlier on Monday, the faculty resolved that the university will do everything possible to respect the founding commitment to a trimester based academic calendar and maintain the highes academic rigour and standards.
These intense teaching and learning practices make NLSIU India's best law school, Institute officials said in a statement.