Supreme Court no to cancel CLAT-2020, asks petitioners to represent to panel

New Delhi:The Supreme Court on Friday declined to cancel the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT-2020) this year or stay the counselling process.

A bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan said it was of the view that the petitioners should submit their grievances to the grievances redressal committee for an early decision on the complaints.

The observations came on a plea by five candidates who sought quashing of the exam due to alleged technical glitches.

The CLAT -- a centralised national entrance test for admissions to National Law Universities (NLUs) in the country -- was held on September 28.

Senior lawyer PS Narasimha, representing a consortium of NLUs, submitted that the grievance redressal committee headed by a former Chief Justice can consider the issues raised by the petitioners.

The bench told senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayan representing the petitioners that it can't stop the counselling process.

Sankaranarayan cited technical glitches during the online exam, adding that certain questions were not correct and the software did not record some answers correctly.

He also cited lack of response from the consortium of NLUs on around 19,000 objections. He submitted before the bench that for the first time, only 3 per cent students have crossed the 50 per cent of the total 150 marks.

Narasimha, opposing the contention, said there cannot be unending counselling for admissions in the backdrop of the ongoing pandemic and insisted that unnecessary complaints have been raised.

Citing the contentious questions in the exam, he added that 146th and 150th questions attracted a lot of objections and were later dropped as per an expert committee's recommendation.

The top court concluded the hearing by saying: "We give liberty to the petitioners to make a representation before the committee within two days."

The bench also said that a decision on the matter should be taken at the earliest.