CLAT 2020: Petition filed in Supreme Court for quashing of entrance exam due to tech glitches, seeks direction for re-conducting the exam

A petition has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking a declaration that the conduct of Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) 2020 violated Articles 14 and 15. Further, the petitioners pray for the Court to quash the exam and for a direction to the Consortium to re-conduct the exam.

. The petition, filed by a bunch of CLAT 2020 aspirants, highlights grievances faced by many aspirants due to alleged technical glitches during the exam held on September 28. The petitioners have urged the top Court to direct the CLAT Consortium to set up a high powered committee to look into the complaints lodged and grievances raised by the students.

. Apart from a prayer for the conduct of a fresh round of CLAT 2020, the petitioners also seek a direction for the Consortium to ensure that technical difficulties do not recur in the re-exam.

. This year, after multiple rounds of postponement due to COVID-19 contingencies, CLAT was finally held on September 28 as an online-Centre based exam. In this exam, the petitioners, who were CLAT aspirants, claim that there were instances of answers mismatching. As such the aspirants were adversely affected and contend that the exam stands vitiated.

. The results declared by the Consortium are, therefore, "wrong, erroneous, and incorrect" and, as such, "biased". The petition lists various issues faced by the aspirants in the online entrance exam:

The candidates have chosen/selected/ticked correct answers; however, it is reflecting in a result that us wrong and/or different options have been chosen/selected/ticked.

The result is displaying and calculating marks in those questions, which were not even attempted by the candidates.

Candidates have chosen/selected/ticked different options; however, in the results, different answers are shown as chosen/selected/ticked.

10 questions are either wrong themselves, or their answers which are uploaded on website are wrong .

. The answer key to the online exam was published by the CLAT Consortium on the same day of exams in order to invite objections, if any, by the next day.

. This was followed by the allotment of provisional marks to candidates on September 30. On October 3, a press statement was issued by the CLAT Consortium defended the software used to conduct the exam, stating that the large number of objections received from candidates was owing to the procedure being kept free of cost.

. This, the petition claims was an "arrogant" move by the Consortium. The petition says,

. "...neither grievance committee nor the consortium looked into the issues of objections / grievances filed by the petitioners / aspirants in large numbers, however, dealt the same with biased approach in very arrogant way vide their press release dated 03.10.2020." . There were some changes made to the answer key subsequently, wherein the Consortium decided to drop some questions from the exam and modified answers for a couple of others.

. In addition to highlighting that the large number of objections filed by the aspirants casts aspersions on the integrity of the software used for the exam, the petitioners also state that the instructions for the exam were vague and, as such, arbitrary.

. "...the vagueness and ambiguity of the instructions provided in the exam including the instructions concerning “Clear Response” and “Mark for Review” worsen the arbitrariness and discrimination perpetrated by CLAT 2020 and further violate Articles 14 and 15 of the Constitution" . Moreover, an objection has also been raised to the length of the exam, which is stated to have had about 18,600 words to be read in the 120-minute time span permitted to anwser the exam. The petitioners add that this posed a disadvantage from students from non-English medium backgrounds as well.

"It is unfortunate that the CLAT Consortium has designed the question paper for, CLAT 2020‟ in a way that ensures systematic exclusion of students hailing from non-English speaking backgrounds ", the petitioners contend.

. The conduct of exams must be done in an unblemished way, the petitioners aver, citing the precedents laid down by the Supreme Court. The petitioners, therefore, pray for the CLAT 2020 to be declared violative of Articles 14 and 15 and for a fresh round of the exam to be held, without the technical glitches that the first round allegedly faced.

. The petition has been filed through Advocate Ankita Choudhary.

CLAT 2020: Petition filed in Supreme Court for quashing of entrance exam due to tech glitches, seeks direction for re-conducting the exam

Shruti Mahajan

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