Technical glitches mar conduct of CLAT 2018 across country

This year’s edition of the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT 2018) conducted today was hit by technical difficulties at centres across the country.

As revealed by various sources, candidates lost up to ten minutes as result of the glitches encountered in the online test. Career Launcher has even gone to the extent of calling it “probably the worst administered CLAT till date”.

The problems arose at the start of the scheduled time of the exam, with students at some centres having to wait for an hour to begin.

At the Greater Noida centre, the exam could not begin on time, as the administrators did not know the password required to start it. To add to the woes, some systems were not functional, which meant that time for the students using them had to be reset. However, owing to another blunder, the clock started at the wrong time, costing students up to ten minutes.

A similar issue was faced at the Thane centre, where students were met with blank screens when they logged in. Again, the timer was not reset at the correct point, leading to a loss of time. One student said,

“The management didn’t know anything. They didn’t even sign on our hall tickets in our class. We had to force them to sign on the hall tickets.”

Another technical glitch prevented students from going on to the next question. When the ‘Next’ button was hit, a question would be skipped, reported some students.

Lawctopus has reported that these issues were faced in centres across the country. Other reported deficiencies include frequent power cuts, clashes between students and invigilators, and the failure to conduct the practice test before the exam.

CLAT Mentor Rajneesh Singh also revealed the issues with the exam. His Facebook post reads,

“…one thing is clear; that there have been technical glitches. in almost every exam center. It is surely not related to the interface (interface is just the design of the homepage). It also does not seem to be a software issue. To me, it seems like a major server problem from the control room or the centralist system. Was there any problem at your center. What was that? I am assuming that your clock was at pause when the computer was hanging.”

The software for this year’s online exam was provided by Sify; TCS has been the provider for the previous editions of CLAT.

Prof Shamnad Basheer, whose petition in the Supreme Court calling for a permanent body to conduct CLAT ever year, has described the conduct of this year’s exam as an “absolute mess” and a “nightmare” for students! There is a possibility that the issues will be highlighted before the Supreme Court when the matter comes up for hearing on May 15.