CLAT 2018: 4690 candidates to benefit from compensatory formula, SC orders publishing revised results by June 16

NEW DELHI, JUNE 14: As many as 4690 of the total 54,644 candidates who had faced technical difficulties while appearing for Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) on May 13 will be benefitted through the compensatory formula, as directed by the Supreme Court to National University of Advanced Legal Studies Kochi (NUALS). The apex court upon hearing the petitioners and NUALS has also ordered the Kochi NLU to finish this exercise of compensating these 4690 test takers with the extra marks by June 15. Further, the NUALS has also been directed to publish a revised result arising due to this compensatory exercise, by June 16, 2018, on the CLAT website.

A bench of Justices UU Lalit and Deepak Gupta passed a slew of directions in a batch of petitions filed by various CLAT 2018 takers aggrieved by the manner in which the Common Law Admission Test was conducted.

Pursuant to the numerous complaints on the CLAT 2018, the Supreme Court had earlier, ordered NUALS to set up a Grievance Committee. The committee had suggested that the test takers should be compensated with extra marks.

During the last hearing, the NUALS had also submitted the compensatory formula which had been readily accepted by the apex court.

The court proceedings

After hearing Senior Advocate Sanjay Hegde and Advocate Zoheb Hussain representing the petitioners, ASG Maninder Singh appearing for the CLAT 2018 Exam Centres and Senior Advocate V Giri along with advocate A Karthik representing NUALS, the SC put two questions–

1. Whether the entire test needs to be cancelled and a fresh test is required to be ordered
2. If the entire test is not to be cancelled, what methodology can be adopted to compensate the students who had lost time and were put to prejudice?

Answering the first question, the Court remarked, “Any outright cancellation would visit tremendous inconvenience and hardship upon rest of the candidates. If the interest of those candidates who suffered loss of time could otherwise be compensated, there is no reason that the entire admission test be cancelled or annulled.”

For the second question, the apex court asked the NUALS advocates to submit the formula-chart which can be applied to the 4690 aggrieved test takers.

Compensatory Formula

According to the chart, the total number of questions attempted and those attempted correctly were recorded. Based on these numbers, the ‘estimated’ additional number of questions was calculated based on the attempting efficiency of the candidate, considering the fact that there would not have been any time-loss. The revised marks of the candidate were then calculated after applying normalisation process to the expected additional attemptable questions.

Why the normalisation process?

The Supreme Court opined that the normalisation would benefit all the 4690 test takers who had lost time, even as it did not prejudice the other CLAT 2018 takers.

The court marked, “Normally, a candidate would first answer those questions, whose answers he is well aware of and leave out rest to be answered in the end. His success rate in the former part would certainly be greater, as compared to the latter. Since he would be given the benefit at the same success rate, there would be no prejudice. It is true that repeated interruptions would cause mental stress and upset him. But that aspect as a factor is difficult to be translated in a quantifiable parameter.”

The Court Orders

This NUALS has been ordered to carry out this exercise by June 15 and publishing of the revised results on CLAT website by June 16, 2018.

The Court had also directed to furnish second round of counselling considering the revised results, as suggested by the Grievance Redressal Committee.

The Court also held, “’The first round of counselling and any seat allocation made pursuant to the same shall not be affected by the revision of the results, and that any candidate allocated a seat will not in any way stand adversely affected as a result of the revised position.”

Following the court order, it stands now clarified that a candidate whose CLAT 2018 score improves post-publication of revised results and if the candidate becomes eligible for admission to another NLU, he/she will not lose the fee deposited with the earlier NLU.