CLAT 2015: Why Friday’s hearings could change the Common Law Admission Test forever

The CLAT Core Committee may have washed its hands of the 2015 exam, but one law student is refusing to let things be. Shubham Dutt, whose petition led the Bombay High Court to direct the constitution of a second expert committee, has now asked the court to re-open the matter. And with good reason..But first, a quick round up..On July 2 this year, two judges of the Bombay High Court had directed the CLAT Convenor to re-examine the points raised by Dutt vis-a-vis the answer key. Not for the first time was the accuracy of the CLAT 2015 questions under challenge. The identical plea had been raised in multiple courts, leading the CLAT Convenor to form an “expert committee” to look into the questions. The said “expert committee” had, not surprisingly, found only three errors as far as the undergraduate question paper was concerned. Everything else, said the expert committee, was perfectly fine..The Bombay High Court though, was buying none of this, and this is clear from the directions that ensued. To quote,.“We are not convinced by the single liner order of the experts as the questions involved are of general nature and certainly not technical or complicated in nature.“.Not only would the expert committee have to re-examine the challenges, but if it refused to accept them, then it would have to provide justified reasons for doing so..Go through the entire judgment and it is not too difficult to read between the lines. What the court was essentially doing was giving the people behind CLAT 2015 another chance to rectify clearly noticeable errors. A shot at redemption if you will..It was a wasted opportunity..In fact, what the CLAT Convenor did next borders on contempt. The discrepancies were dismissed in three lines, with a blank refusal to accept any errors at all. No further explanation was given, nor were any reasons provided..The High Court’s directions may have been followed in letter, and even this is arguable, but they were certainly not followed in spirit..Which is where the restoration becomes imperative. Should the High Court decide to re-examine the matter and scrutinise the CLAT Convenor’s response, the Core Committee may find itself on a very sticky wicket indeed..Of course, there are chances of RMLNLU simply passing the baton or claiming that that CLAT Committee 2015 is no longer in existence. It won’t be a convincing argument, but it may well be a legal one..But what is truly unfortunate is that the fundamental questions regarding the exam will go unattended. A question paper containing blatant errors was used for conducting a national examination, the errors were pointed out but not accepted. An “expert committee” was formed but found no errors; when asked to provide reasons it failed to do so..And mind you, this is a committee which consisted of two retired High Court judges, one NLU Vice Chancellor and one Dean of a Central University. Although a Supreme Court judgment (Saiyed Hussain Abbas Rizwi) may prevent the publication of their exact identities, documents accessed by Bar & Bench certainly confirm their positions..The obvious question then is how can institutes of legal education, or rather the individuals heading them, discard their responsibilities with such utter callousness and disregard for the effect of their own incompetence?.This Friday, there is hope for change. And not just from the Bombay High Court..Another court, this time in Delhi, may soon be examining the institutional mechanisms that allow CLAT to function as it currently does. A petition, to be filed in the Supreme Court, seeks to do just that. If entertained, and heard, the petition shall undoubtedly change the face of legal education. Or not..For now, all eyes are on the Bombay High Court..Update: The matter will now be heard this Monday, August 3 before the same Bench.