SC dismisses plea against conducting CLAT 2020 via online mode, exam to be held on Aug 22

The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed a petition seeking direction to conduct the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) through offline mode amid the surge in COVID-19 cases across the country. The petition had challenged the CLAT 2020 exam through online mode and cited accessibility issues. CLAT 2020 is scheduled to be held on August 22 and the last date for submitting applications was July 10. 

A bench headed by Justice L. Nageswara Rao questioned advocate Mitul Jain regarding his concern with the issue. The petitioner pointed out that students have prepared for over a year believing that the exam would be held offline. However, after hearing the arguments, the three-judge bench declined to entertain the PIL. The Consortium of National Law Universities had declared earlier that the exam for this year would be held online pertaining to the prevailing COVID situation in the country.

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The Committee had intimated the states about the same by issuing a notification which read, "an off-line test, as initially contemplated, would require large scale movement of students to limited centres, and significant logistics in the handling of question papers and answer scripts, which is not possible during the prevalent pandemic conditions. Further, an on-line test at home with technological measures cannot ensure transparency, fairness and integrity of a high stakes examination process or maintain equitable access to necessary facilities. Hence, the EC concluded that an on-line test at large number of centres compliant with physical distancing and public health safety prescriptions is in the best interests of the health and safety of candidates and test administrators."

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The Consortium of NLUs has also planned to conduct a series of mock tests to acclimatize students with the upcoming CLAT 2020 entrance exam, which is set to be conducted in computer-based, online, centre-based mode. For the undergraduate programme, there will be five CLAT UG 2020 mock tests, with the first mock test scheduled for July 17. Meanwhile, for CLAT PG three mock tests have been planned, with the first of the series slated for July 24.

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