Reconsider decision to hold separate entrance test, consortium tells NLSIU

A day after the National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bengaluru, announced that it would conduct its own entrance test for admissions to B.A. LLB and LLM courses for this year’s admissions, the Consortium of National Law Universities issued a statement asking it to reconsider its decision.

In a press release, Balraj Chauhan, convenor of CLAT 2020, said that the governing body stated that the NLSIU’s decision was in violation of Rule 15.3.3 of the consortium bylaws as all the members of the consortium were “duty-bound” to admit students only through CLAT. The release also stated that if the NLSIU stuck to its decision, it could not remain associated with CLAT 2020 in any manner. All financial and administrative decisions will be taken by Prof. Chauhan and the secretariat of the consortium may be shifted out of NLSIU.

In previous academic years, admission into NLSIU has been based only on CLAT scores, but this year the university has decided to conduct its own test as CLAT has been postponed multiple times because of the COVID-19 pandemic. CLAT will be conducted as scheduled on September 28 for other national law schools.

‘Different format’

Students planning to apply for NLSIU’s National Law Aptitude Test (NLAT) 2020, an online home test that will be conducted on September 12, have pointed out that the marking scheme, duration of exam, and number of questions were different from those of CLAT.

While CLAT 2020 is proposed to be a two-hour exam, NLAT 2020 is a 45-minute test. NLSIU, in a statement to The Hindu, said that the exam structure of NLAT 2020 aimed to minimise the possibility of malpractice. “This was also in response to infrastructural concerns. In addition, certain changes have been made to the question paper structure for the undergraduate paper that ensure a deeper testing of skills and aptitude,” it was said in the statement.

In order to prevent malpractice, the students have also been told that they cannot revisit questions. “In combination with the scoring pattern of NLAT 2020 and the randomised sequencing of question sets for each candidate, this will help towards preventing unauthorised collaboration among candidates and others,” NLSIU said.

The online test will be monitored through Artificial Intelligence-based proctoring, as well as human proctoring, to ensure that the exam is conducted smoothly and fairly.

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