The Hon’ble High Court of Delhi in V Govinda Ramanan Vs Consortium of National Law Universities & Anr. [W.P.(C) 4848/2020] dismissed a petition for conducting CLAT in Home based exam format.

Background –

 The petitioner is an LLM aspirant who has approached the High Court for a change in the mode of CLAT examination as an offline/physical examination is detrimental to his ‘Right to life’ and ‘Right to health’ guaranteed under Article 21 of the constitution. The petitioner suffers from asthma and is among the vulnerable group as per the advisory direction of the government. The CLAT-2020 examination was to be held on 22.08.2020 which has been extended to 28.09.2020. The petitioner prayed for a home-based examination which is conducted by the consortium of 22 National Law Universities.

The Respondent consortium assured that all the necessary measures of disinfection of the centre, thermal screening of students and social distancing etc will be adhered to as per the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Human Resource Development on 06.07.2020 for conducting examinations at physical test centre for final term examinations for Universities, IIT-JEE, NEET, etc. Since there are approximate 78,000 students appearing for CLAT home-based exam will not serve the larger interest of an entrance as it gives scope to malpractices and it will also be prejudicial to candidates not having a stable internet connection or a laptop or desktop.

Held –

The Hon’ble Court while heavily relying  on a similar case of Mitul Jain vs. Consortium of NLUs & Ors [W.P.(C) No.717/2020] dismissed the petition, noting that the guidelines of the government for vulnerable population is only advisory in nature and not enforceable in a strict manner and that the directions of the Ministry of Human Resource allow the opening of institutions for the purpose of conducting examination.

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