If MBBS, IIT entrance exams can be held in Hindi, why not CLAT? Delhi High Court asks NLUs

The Delhi High Court recently asked the Consortium of National Law Universities (NLUs), why it cannot hold the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) in Hindi when the entrance examinations medical and engineering colleges are held in Hindi along with English..A Division Bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad posed the question to the counsel appearing for the NLUs while hearing a plea seeking conduct of CLAT in Hindi and other regional languages along with English.“If MBBS entrance can be conducted in Hindi, if IIT entrances can be conducted in Hindi, why can’t the CLAT exams be done the same way,” the bench asked.The counsel appearing for the NLUs said that a committee has been constituted to look into the issue and would take a call on the same in its meeting.The Court had issued notice in the matter earlier. However, it was informed on May 19 that the consortium of NLUs is yet to file its response.The Bench then directed the consortium to file its response in four weeks. The case will now be considered on July 7..The PIL was filed by Delhi University student Sudhanshu Pathak stating that because CLAT is conducted only in English, it causes gross injustice to students from non-English medium.The petitioner cited a survey by the Increasing Diversity by Increasing Access to legal education (IDIA) Trust.The survey revealed that over 95% of surveyed students in NLUs came from schools where the medium of instruction was English both at the secondary and higher secondary level..The petition contended that this was not surprising given that CLAT is an entrance examination that demand a high degree of proficiency in English, which is a mark of privilege, and thereby provides an inherent advantage to students from an English medium background."This figure has been more or less consistent with the results of the 2013-14 survey wherein 96.77% of the surveyed students came from English medium backgrounds, indicating that proficiency in the English language continues to be a major factor for gaining admission to a top NLU in the country," the petitioner said..Senior Advocate Jayant Mehta along with advocates Akash Vajpai and Sakshi Raghav appeared for the petitioner..Recently, Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud had said there are many barriers to access legal education and enter legal profession and cracking the CLAT was an example of such barrier since it can be cracked only by those students who have access to good English medium schools.