The candidates who had appeared in the May 13 Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) and complained of glitches, could make online representation by 7 PM of May 27 to the two-member grievance redressal committee set up by National University of Advanced Legal Studies (NUALS), the Supreme Court said today.
A bench comprising Justices A M Khanwilkar and Indu Malhotra was informed by the counsel for NUALS that they have constituted a two-member panel, headed by retired Kerala High Court judge, Justice M R Hariharan Nair, which would look into the complaints from the students.
NUALS, with the aid of private firm M/s Sify Technologies Ltd, had conducted the CLAT 2018 on May 13 for admissions in the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in law courses offered at premier law schools. The results of the examination is scheduled to be declared on May 31.
Soon after the exam, several pleas were filed in six different high courts across the country and also in the apex court seeking quashing of the CLAT alleging inconsistencies and technical glitches during the May 13 online test.
The bench today said the panel, which also comprises Dr Santhosh Kumar G, Head of Department of Computer Science at Cochin University of Science and Technology, would examine the complaints and representations received from the students till 7 PM of May 27 and take appropriate decision on a case-to-case basis after "due analysis".
The court was informed by the NUALS counsel that they would create a dedicated e-mail account on which the students could send their complaints, and its publicity would be done on the official website of CLAT "very shortly within two hours".
The bench said the students could register their complaints and representations on the dedicated e-mail account.
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"The committee will examine every singular representation received online till now and any further representation which would be received till 7 PM of Sunday (May 27) and after due analysis, appropriate decision on a case-to-case basis will be taken by the committee," the top court said.
It directed that the committee should first scrutinise around 250 complaints which have already been received, and take appropriate decision by May 29. Then in the second phase, it would deal with the new representations which are received online.
The apex court said a report giving the status of the complaints and decisions taken on them be filed before it by May 30.
The bench also made it clear that the grievances of the students, who have approached the high courts and the apex court, would also be dealt with by the committee.
When the counsel for the petitioners raised the issue of cheating in the examination, the bench said, "Let the committee examine all this. Let the status report be placed before us and after that if there is something required to be done, we will see".
Initially, the bench said it would keep the "window open" for students to give their complaints or representations to the committee till 5 PM of May 28, but later the time decided was till 7 PM of May 27 after the NUALS counsel said the results of CLAT 2018 were scheduled to be declared on May 31.
At the outset, the NUALS told the bench that a two-member committee has been constituted to look into the complaints raised by various candidates, who had appeared in CLAT 2018, and after perusing the complaints, the panel would determine if the candidate have genuine grievances and would also suggest measures to address it.
The pleas filed in the apex court have alleged that the candidates faced several technical glitches during on-line test, besides poor infrastructure at examination centres and lack of proper guidance from staffers.
They have also sought an interim stay on the publication of final result till the decision on their plea.
The high courts of Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Bombay, Punjab and Haryana and Rajasthan, both the Jaipur and Jodhpur benches, were hearing the pleas challenging the CLAT 2018 examination and notices have been issued in some of these matters.
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