On Tuesday, September 8, former vice-chancellor of the National Law School of India University (NLSIU) filed a plea in the Supreme Court against the university’s decision to conduct a separate admission test for admission to undergraduate BA LLB (Hons) programme this year. In his plea, former V-C R Venkata Rao stated that the “unilateral decision was taken without any application of mind, thereby completely prejudicing the students at the final hour”. The decision, he maintained, has put students’ career “in jeopardy for purely whimsical reasons”.
The petition, filed through advocates Sughosh Subramanyam and Vipin Nair, stated that it is “apparent” that the step is “solely directed at creating an elitist institution which caters to those who are able to afford to take the test…while completely ignoring aspirations of the poor, marginalised and less privileged candidates.”
According to the petitioner, it appears that the sole aim of the move is to turn NLSIU “from an island of excellence to an island of exclusion”.
On September 3, NLSIU had announced its decision to not accept the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) scores for admission to the BA LLB (Hons) course for the academic year 2020-21. CLAT was originally scheduled for May 10 but was rescheduled multiple times on account of the Covid-19 situation.
Rao contended in his plea that the incumbent V-C did not have requisite consent from the university’s academic counsel for holding a separate examination, and that technical requirement of having a laptop and 1 Mbps internet speed for taking the home-proctored examination is “onerous, arbitrary, discriminatory and illegal”.
Source: The Indian Express
Add comment