Kerala HC disposes of plea on CLAT counselling fees after NLU Consortium allows candidates to provisionally participate without remitting fees

The Consortium of National Law Universities on Monday informed the Kerala High Court that the Grievance Redressal Committee constituted by it had, upon the direction of the court, allowed several CLAT 2021 candidates to provisionally participate in the Counselling process for admission to NLUs without paying the Rs. 50,000 fee (Sivapriya Ajith v. Union of India and Ors.)..Single judge, Justice Anu Sivaraman, disposed of the case noting that that the Consortium has responded expeditiously to the grievances raised by the petitioners and other similarly placed candidates. .Justice Sivaraman, while declining to issue directions in this regard, remarked that "if such a process exists where candidates have to pay this high amount, it should find a place in the initial notification itself. Otherwise students might be taken by surprise and they might not be able to pay. Especially students who are eligible for fee reductions might not be able to raise this amount in such a short time"..The petition was filed by candidates of CLAT 2021 who had moved the Court challenging the compulsory ₹50,000 fee required to be paid by such candidates for being considered for allotment of seats in National Law UniversitiesAdvocate Rassal Janardhanan A, appearing for the petitioners, submitted that while two of the petitioners were able to remit the Rs. 50,000 counselling fee, the other two were unable to do the same. They were also unable to register their grievance with the grievance redressal committee within the stipulated time period due to some technical issues, he added. However, upon sending the committee an email, their issues were taken care of and they have been allowed to participate in the counselling process, provisionally, without remitting the fee. He concluded with an additional prayer that the Court may issue directions to the Consortium to consider such grievances from similarly placed candidates in future years as well and to mention the counselling fee in the prospectus of each NLU in the future.At an earlier hearing of the case, the petitioners had raised the grievance that the Consortium of NLUs does not have any common prospectus for the CLAT admission process. However, each NLU has its own prospectus available to the candidates at the time of application.The plea stated,"Nowhere in the prospectus of the NLUs or in the notifications in the Website of Consortium of NLUs had any mention been made of the requirement of Rs.50,000 to be paid as a prerequisite to the applicant being considered for the allotment.".[BREAKING] Consortium of National Law Universities will consider grievances raised by CLAT 2021 candidates regarding Rs. 50,000 counselling fee.Standing Counsel for the Consortium of National Law Universities also confirmed that the petitioners had been allowed to provisionally participate in the counselling process ..Further, eleven more similarly placed candidates had approached the grievance redressal committee based on the Court's earlier order and they were also allowed to participate in the counselling process, he added.He further assured the Court that the Consortium would take the recommendations made by way of remarks by the Court in the coming years..Noting that the grievances of the petitioners in the instant case have been address in a timely manner, the Court disposed the case.