The Rajasthan High Court recently stayed the investigation arising out of a dispute between two Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) coaching institutions over claims of mentoring a top-ranked student.

A complaint was lodged by a CLAT coaching institution alleging that a CLAT ranker and their parent had informed them of a lucrative offer from a rival CLAT coaching institution in exchange for endorsement from the ranker.

It was further claimed that the parent of the ranker attempted to blackmail and threaten the reputation of the complainant institution.

Justice Baljinder Singh Sandhu observed that the dispute stemmed from business rivalry. The order reads,

"Be that as it may, on the face of it, this petition involves a minor girl and from the bare reading of the FIR, it appears to be a fight over claiming the credit of a top ranker and seems to be more of a business rivalry between the two institutions.

This Court feels that, in fact, such dispute should not have cropped up, when the same involves a student and the institutions which are offering coaching for CLAT, both the parties should have exercised restraint in the matter. It is expected from the parties to settle the matter at the earliest so that this face-off does not enter the next phase."

The Court directed the parent of the student to appear in mediation proceedings between the parties and issued a stay on further investigation.

Senior Advocate Vineet Jain and Advocates Vivek Mathur, Udit Mathur, Purshottam Saraswat, Khadyotan Gurjar and Ivan appeared for the petitioner.

Advocate Vikram Rajpurohit appeared for the State.

[Read order]