CLAT 2014: Deadline for second allotment list not met; GNLU to deduct Rs. 10,000 as “admin charges” from deposit of students withdrawing from admission process

Students participating in the ongoing counseling for the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) continue to face problems, the most recent one being the non-publication of the second allotment list..This is despite the fact that as per the revised CLAT schedule, the second list was to be declared yesterday. Furthermore, students had till yesterday to choose whether they wanted to remain with the allotted law school declared in the first allotment list..Meanwhile, those students who were alloted a law school but have chosen to withdraw from the admission process will have ten thousand rupees deducted from the initial deposit of one lakh. This deduction is being made under the heading of “administrative charges” without any clarifications as to what these “administrative charges” are. Last year the amount being deducted from the deposit was one thousand, with the deposit itself fixed at rupees fifty thousand..In fact, in 2011 the Univeristy Grants Commission had mandated that no more than one thousand rupees could be charged from students withdrawing from the admission process of an institute. This deduction appears to be in direct violation of the UGC’s mandate..Thus far, there has been no publication of the final results (although a list was published, it was subsequently removed) nor has their been a publicly available first allotment list. What this means is that students are unsure of whether they should join the law school they have been allotted, take the chance of being allotted a law school higher up in the preference list, or withdraw from the admission process completely. And, as has become the norm, attempts to contact the CLAT Convener, Dr. Bimal Patel, have proved to be futile..The only law school that seems to have managed to publish a list of admitted students is NLIU, Bhopal that recently released the composite list for the undergraduate and postgraduate courses. If other law schools do follow suit, there may be some respite for the applicants. Until then though, all they can do is wait and watch..You can see the proposed admission flowchart below: