CLAT Petition Delhi High Court allows impleadment of the 12 other participating NLUs in the LPA filed to set up permanent CLAT Body

The Letters Patent Appeal filed before the Delhi High Court in Shubham Sinha vs. Union of India came up for hearing on October 15, 2012. The Bench felt that as a systemic change is required, it would be good to have all the NLUs as parties and then have their view as well. Therefore, the Court has directed the Appellant to serve notice to the other 12 NLUs..The Letters Patent Appeal filed before the Delhi High Court in Shubham Sinha vs. Union of India came up for hearing on October 15, 2012. Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, appearing on behalf of the Appellant informed the Court that the notice has been served to HNLU, Raipur as they had been impleaded as a party on the earlier occasion..Gopal also informed the Court that the scope of the LPA is now narrow (as the NLU, Jodhpur issues relating to CLAT 2012 are now closed) and submitted that the matter is not adversarial and that both sides should look for a way forward..The Division Bench comprising of the new Chief Justice D Murugesan and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw asked the Bar Council of India (BCI) to make their stand clear. Senior Advocate Sanjeev Sachdeva, appearing for the BCI said that BCI really had no role to play, but it might be appropriate in the larger scheme of things that the other National Law Universities (NLUs) are also impleaded..Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan responded by saying that as per the CLAT MoU, the present CLAT Co-ordinator is sufficient to respond on the behalf of all the other NLUs. Gopal also said that the next exam process would commence from January 2013, and that the horse should not have bolted by then..However, the Bench felt that as a systemic change is required, it would be good to have all the NLUs as parties and then have their view as well. Therefore, the Court directed the Appellant to serve notice to the other 12 NLUs and amend the cause title accordingly..The matter will now come up for further hearing on December 3, 2012.