BENGALURU: The National Law School of India University (NLSIU) Bengaluru has decided to hold a separate entrance examination for 120 seats for its B.A., LL.B and LL.M programmes for the academic year 2020-21.
This is a departure from its usual admissions through the all-India Common Law Admission Test (CLAT), due to the pandemic. All applications must be submitted online at https:// admissions.nls.ac.in/ The university announced on Thursday that applications were open till the midnight of September 10. Students seeking admission to NLSIU must apply directly to the university and complete the NLAT UG 2020 entrance examination. The University will not accept CLAT 2020 scores for admission to academic year 2020-21, the admissions notice by the institute stated.
“We are fully committed to ensuring that no student is denied the opportunity to study at NLSIU this academic year. Hence, NLSIU is compelled by the current circumstances to conduct a separate admissions process for the B.A., LL.B and LL.M programmes for the academic year 2020- 21,” the university notice said. This change is due to the academic structure -- trimester system -- of the top law institute of the country, which puts it at a particular disadvantage if CLAT is postponed, and the institute could even run the risk of having a ‘zero year’ if admissions are not completed before the end of September. In a trimester, every academic year is made up of three terms of 90 days.
Each term must accommodate 60 hours of classroom instruction in each course. In addition, it must adequately provide for examination and evaluation processes. The third, fourth and fifth year of the B.A., LL.B programme as well as LL.M programme is fully integrated, and needs a common calendar. At a faculty meeting on August 6, it was unanimously resolved that NLSIU needed to take all measures to avoid a zero year.
This was followed up by two rounds of meetings by the Executive Council of the University on August 12 and 18, which authorised the university to develop an alternative admission process in the event that CLAT 2020 was not conducted on September 7. Meanwhile, the Executive Committee of the Consortium of National Law Universities, on August 28 announced that CLAT will be postponed from September 7 to September 28. A faculty sub-committee formed to develop a revised admission procedure concluded that an online common entrance test, and with low application fee would be a fair.