NLSIU Bangalore has decided to conduct separate admissions to its BA, LLB and LLM programmes this year, outside the oft-postponed Common Law Admission Test (CLAT), on 12 September 2020 with a week for applicants to register for 4% of the fees of the CLAT.
According to a PDF notification posted on a new microsite on the NLS.ac.in website, at admissions.nls.ac.in (which we have confirmed is authentic from authoritative sources), NLSIU’s administration, faculty and executive council (EC) had between 6 and 18 August 2020 “unanimously resolved to authorize the University to develop an alternative admissions process in the event that CLAT 2020 was not conducted on September 7th 2020” (see excerpt and full copy below).
According to the notification, “[h]ence, NLSIU is compelled by the current circumstances to conduct a separate admissions process for the B.A., LL.B and LL.M programmes for the Academic Year 2020-21”.
Since the CLAT was indeed not conducted on 7 September but was again postponed to 28 September 2020 now, due to a lockdown in West Bengal, NLSIU seems to have pressed ahead with its decision and has launched its own online admissions portal.
The microsite also includes a link to a sample “general comprehension passages and questions” for the “NLAT 2020” (short for National Law Aptitude Test).
The admissions portal is open from today with an application deadline of 10 September 2020, with the cost of applications being Rs 150 for general and PWD category candidates, and Rs 125 for SC / ST candidates.
This is far below the CLAT fees of Rs 4,000 and 3,500 respectively.
In part, the lower cost can be explained by NLS’ decision to run an “online home-based entrance examination” (which had been rejected by the CLAT consortium, as well as eventually NLU Delhi’s competing All India Law Entrance Test (AILET) exam, which had initially intended to run a home-proctored test, like the Symbiosis Law Schools and the LSAT-India, used by JGLS Sonepat and others).
Consequences
Where exactly this will leave the CLAT and other national law schools, as well as those who had registered for the CLAT hoping for a shot at getting admission to NLSIU, is uncertain.
One national law university vice-chancellor (VC) said, on condition on anonymity: “This is a wrong decision and will damage consortium.”
Update 23:08: The consortium, which had been taken by surprise by NLSIU’s move, has made the following statement:
An emergency meeting of the Executive Council of the Consortium of National Law Universities was held tonight i.e. September 3,2020 to discuss the situation arising out of NLSIU, Bangalore’s opting out of CLAT-2020. All the members of the Executive Council except Vice Chancellor of NLSIU, Bangalore were present.
The Executive Council expressed its surprise and anguish on the unilateral decision of NLSIU to go ahead with its own admission test.
The Council noted with dismay that while the NLSIU wishes to continue in the consortium yet conduct its own admission test which is not permissible under the Bye laws of the Consortium. Moreover this new admission test will put thousands of students during the extra ordinary Covid-19 health emergency to a lot of inconvenience who will now have to appear in two tests instead of one.
An emergency meeting of the General Council of the Consortium will be held tomorrow to decide the future course of action. The Executive Council unanimously resolved to hold CLAT-2020 on the earlier announced date of September 28, 2020.
Prof Balraj Chauhan
Convener
However, we understand from a source that NLSIU has written to the CLAT consortium to state that the university remains a founding member and fully committed to the CLAT, though it requires an exception this year.
We have reached out to the NLSIU administration and the CLAT consortium for comment.
Despite NLS’ assurances of its commitment to the CLAT, this could lead to the further balkanisation of national law school admissions, as had been started by NLU Delhi, which has its own entrance test (currently scheduled to be held in physical test centres, two days before the CLAT, on 26 September.
Details about how exactly this will pan out are not clear right now either. Questions include NLS and the consortium handle fees paid by candidates to the CLAT already, as well as potential requests for refunds for those who may just registered for the CLAT in order to join NLS.
Article being updated.
[documentcloud NLSIU new 2020-21 admissions document
Comments
The reason why students is getting away with this is -
1. He has blocked NLSIU student body and alumni access to internal email exchanges, meaning thereby the communication mechanism amongst the NLSIU community has been shattered.
2. There are no students on the campus to confront him.
Congratulations to the students of NLSIU Bangalore who put the [...] President in charge of running the country.
Flatly arbitrary. And Sudhir still shamelessly remains Secy-Treasurer of the Consortium after this?
https://www.nls.ac.in/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/NOTIFICATION-BA-LLB-AND-LLM-1.pdf
https://admissions.nls.ac.in/documents/Final_Reservation%20notification.pdf
It will be interesting to see whether NALSAR makes an exit as well. RS must be laughing crazy right now. BS, the name says it all.
A slow clapping for the NLSIU management for this brilliant decision
This shows how ridiculous would a college management could!!!
Regretting why I choose the law as my profession. Just thinking that how much a college or an consortium could have a bunch of assholes that judge a students capability by conducting an exam by giving time of 9 days.
If some CLAT authority or NLSIU authority is reading this, just imagine a student standing in front of you showing you middle finger.
To be fair, Sudhir doesn't have much choice. Our trimester system really can't handle more delay.
I guess the administration is stuck between a rock and a hard place, but it's difficult to believe that this is the best course of action that could have been adopted.
That would be fairer than what's happening.
Full of errors your statement is. He is not from NLSIU, He is from NLIU. He doesn't head LSAT . LSAT is an independent body and not an Indian organisation. Krishnan is from Jindal Law School . Meanwhile your Krishnan whom you claim has advised Sudhir has criticized this move. In fact he seems reasonable and rational and has advised Sudhir to reconsider and if he still wants do it with some suggestions. check the link attached.
Jokes apart, LSAT is worse. Just check out the details. Less than 5500 people wrote the exam this year, you read it right. Students with a as low percentile as 75 have gone through. And most of the students with good percentile have already left their seats. JGLS will never share all this information in public domain
Also if I may add, JGLS at least had the courtesy of doing this 2 months before conducting LSAT. Suddenly changing plans and going online 10 days before the exam is going to magnify accessibility issues.
But before I go any further, let me request all LI readers to be fair, objective and responsible and read an article that was written by the VC of Jindal and their Director of Law Admissions several months ago. This article was published on 18 May 2020 making the most compelling case for a completely online law entrance exam for India. The authors simply predicted the future and had the vision and farsightedness to make a case for going with LSAT-India.
All the potential NLU aspirants, NLU cheerleaders, current students and alumni of NLUS and of course the members of the CLAT Consortium and the VCs of all NLUs, please read this article carefully and examine for yourself what a monumental failure that the VCs of NLUs have created, which could have been completely avoided.
https://www.livelaw.in/pdf_upload/pdf_upload-374993.pdf
Now that you have read the above article written by Jindal VC and his colleague, it is remarkable that Jindal actually shared this idea and strategy with the public at large. It was very democratic on their part to share this idea in the public domain. Even then, the VCs of NLUs were obstinate, myopic, callously indifferent and downright irresponsible. Further, all the vituperative comments negatively attributed to Jindal and LSAT clearly didn’t help them to think straight about the nature of the global pandemic. By the time, the CLAT Consortium began to come to terms with the reality that a physical law entrance exam is not feasible to be held, it became too late. All opportunities was lost, too much of internal politics, big egos of old NLUs, regardless of young or old VCs ended up dismissing LSAT foreclosing a wonderful option that could have been more objectively examined.
I refer to the LI story dated 8 May 2020 in which it was announced that LSAT-India goes entirely online. I was deeply impressed with what I saw LSAT and Jindal were doing They predicted the future. They planned everything so meticulously with constant communications to all stakeholders with the highest degree of transparency.
It is worth reading the story:
https://www.legallyindia.com/pre-law-student/lsat-india-law-entrance-exam-to-go-entirely-online-with-ai-human-proctors-via-webcam-postponed-to-14-june-20200507-11402
I posted a comment at that time itself that CLAT is a disaster. Please check my comments then and you will see what I had said. Even I couldn’t predict that things will come to this but Jindal took the right call keeping the interests of the students and their aspirations.
I was always sure about the way Jindal was going about what it was doing. At a time when there was total crisis of law schools in India including the NLUs and the CLAT Consortium, Jindal collaborated with LSAT to bring out India’s first and only online entrance exam for law schools. This was clearly the most dynamic, farsighted, thoughtful, and responsible act.
All students who have enrolled at Jindal should consider themselves fortunate. Everything is on schedule at Jindal and they began classes on 1st September as promised.
Every NLU VC should learn from Jindal. The LI readers including many VCs of NLUs were dismissive of the AI-Enabled, Remote Proctored law entrance test.
Now NLS Bengaluru has chosen to do its own online home proctored entrance test - with a mediocre online framework, no reliable data analysis, no proper psychometric process for determining the questions, no transparency relating to the exam, no proper information about the exam, and not enough time for students to prepare for the exam.
Let’s be objective and give credit where it is due. Please read these stories and decide for yourself where is world class legal education happening and hopefully, we can learn from the past:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/m.timesofindia.com/home/education/news/jgls-is-1st-leading-law-school-to-begin-2020-academic-session/amp_articleshow/77844970.cms
https://www.livelaw.in/news-updates/jgls-becomes-first-law-school-to-commence-online-classes-for-over-1500-new-law-students-from-sept-1-162222
You are pulling off a great monopolistic stunt through marketting as well, all those Colloquiums etc we know are nothing but you just projecting your net worth trying to woo gullible children to force thier parents to burden themselves with heavy loans to study about justice education. What a travesty. Law which should.rather be the cheapest course to.create better citizens is beign taught to.make sure those who graduate come own money minded and try to pay off that huge load of debt.All those faculties you get who may have taught in a national law school and even helped these average student access to legal education you are robbing them off it. Even the Krishnan someone referred above who is a mastermind in all this modus operandi of quick exam result and classes even he is pawn of your monopolistic game.
But be clear. The amount of money you charge from students and why many students dont get to study with good faculties you are doing a big crime ethically. Even your scholarships we know are just for the sake. You are elitist in your approach and very unwelcome when we discuss national law schools who are hallmark of access to legal education. [...] had once told me " I do see guilt on the face of people from Jindal. They know they are wrong and when they are in public most of the time they are just justifying thier wrong under th garb of scholarship, global education etc. So please.... We are discussing something where you are unwelcome with your marketting cell posting these comments
While when I'm national you see a man trying to do something is attacked personally for all he is trying rather than trying or suggesting corrective measures.
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[img]https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bn3FwLb3VFA/WaHDGgs61QI/AAAAAAABJj0/iFVb73emNGYDXpzvYcYuKuhKyz-VYVnLgCLcBGAs/s320/ASC-Button-Spy-Camera-Img2-800X800.jpg[/img]
1. NLSIU has a trimester system. Things will go haywire and there will be a year loss.
2. Mamata Banerjee is arbitrarily calling lockdowns and acting like Bengal is not a part of India.
3. NLSIU is the undisputed #1 and miles ahead of others. Many people give CLAT just for NLSIU. So it is fine if NLSIU has a separate exam.
4. Rs 150 is nothing.
5. An online test is safe and reduces the risk of Covid.
6. At the end of the day, the deserving students will make it to NLSIU regardless of what exam and which day.
As suggested above, there is something more sinister at work here. Sudhir, being a junior VC does not have final word on the decisions of the CLAT Consortium. While this is purely speculation, it is more than likely that he pushed for a remote proctored exam at the last Consortium meeting, which was not accepted. Instead of submitting to the collective decision making process of which NLS is a part, his actions amount to no more than a tantrum of someone who was unable to have his way. We may further note that a "Zero Year" also threatens university finances, as first year students are the single largest source of revenue for the university, and may have been an impetus for this decision.
The NLS admin must appreciate that as a public university they are bound by certain principles, and is not the prerogative of a couple of individuals to make such decisions that have far reaching public consequences. Hopefully, the constitutional courts of this country will appreciate the arbitrariness of this action, and ensure that that CLAT process continues as a collective enterprise. If required by court order to be part of CLAT, I do not see NLS refusing to accept a new batch of students because of the 'trimester system'.
With Sudhir being at the helm, NLS is bound to do really bad over the next few years. He spends money in the most useless manner and expects students to fill up for all of it. He's un-empathetic as a person and is unfit to run an institution like NLS. Ask any student at NLS and they will tell you that the biggest mistake they made was to protest to get Sudhir's appointment sorted. He's taken alumni in confidence and keeps building a narrative amongst the alumni and the media so that if students approach any of them, they are not believed.
I'm not even exaggerating any of this. Ask anyone at NLS and they will tell you how bad an administrator Sudhir is. NLS is a great institution. Wish I could have said the same for the current administration.
I think instead of blindly marching behind Sudhir, the alumni will do good to talk to a few current students and know the ground reality. The top-down decision making and authoritarian attitude of the VC always puts the admin's convenience over students interest.
But maybe this is the "academic rigor" that the old alums have known; an apathetic and downright vindictive administration. And maybe just maybe they take some sadistic pleasure in seeing the current students go through the same and decry of falling standards when any attempt is made to fix the rotten system. But I have complete faith in the current student body. I'm sure they'll continue standing up for the truth not for the man. With or without the alums support, we will do everything in our power to leave a better NLS than the one we inherited.
If they want to blame anyone, blame the dinosaurs in the CLAT Committee and the great Faizan who has ruined a whole academic year by playing petty politics. Every day from now till the beginning of Spring 2021 will be a new record of Covid infections. So, if physical CLAT is not possible today, it is certainly possible end of September or after Diwali or any mythical date that you can think of. This will make zero year an inevitability for all law schools let alone NLS, this would be an absolute loss for everyone students and the colleges.
People talking about diversity and having bleeding hearts for the underprivileged, please explain to me, how exactly do you expect students from strained financial resources to maintain themselves for a whole year and still be able to prepare for competitive exams. All these underprivileged students will be forced into the labour force to help support their families. This is the only shot they have and because of the CLAT committee's stupidity of postponing the exam mechanically over and over again, the shot at NLS is exponentially more difficult because of the added technological hurdles.
But again, this isn't Sudhir's fault or NLS's fault. At this short notice, it is impractical for Sudhir and NLS to organise an All India Test, which is as accessible as JEE/NEET. They are at least trying to ensure that there will be 100 or so NLSIU graduates come 2025, and at this rate they'll be the only ones from amongst the CLAT N-schools.
Blithering idiots, specially [...] and [...], through their Nambi pambiness and desire for useless virtue signalling and petty politics have caused so much loss.
Do some research and then comment
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Yes NLSIU needs to graduate law students, specially when it looks like the remaining 'N' schools are unlikely to graduate anyone in 2025. It was the entire damn point of having a Law School to take law students and give them an education. Some applicants getting a shot is far better than nobody getting in and wasting a year of their lives because of what the CLAT Committee has done.
So eventually, when CLAT is cancelled, because the CLAT Committee had no clue about the reality of the situation, I assume all candidates can try to get a refund. So if you're a candidate, you can either apply for NLS, study and try to get in, or spend your time on this forum and fart away to glory. Or better yet, do Satyagraha and claim that you shouldn't be forced to pay twice and keep waiting for CLAT. [img]https://media4.giphy.com/media/o5oLImoQgGsKY/200.gif[/img]
Can't compare generations, or rather shouldn't. Each, in this case, was the best of its time.
1. First of all, it is close to impossible for people with admin responsibilities to publish. Sudhir was in an admin position at Azim Premji prior to NLSIU. Even when he taught at NUJS he had a lot of admin work. Despite these obstacles, he has a great publication record. Much better than other VCs.
2. Quality of publications matters more than quantity.
3. He has published an ENTIRE BOOK by CUP, one of the world's most prestigious publishing houses. The book is called Democracy and Constitutionalism in India: A Study of the Basic Structure Doctrine.
4. He has also co-edited a book by CUP, called A Qualified Hope: The Indian Supreme Court and Progressive Social Change. The co-editors include a Chicago University professor who is world famous (Gerald Rosnberg).
5. He has many other articles. A few examples:
- Krishnaswamy S, K Sivakumar S, Bail S. Legal and Judicial Reform in India: A Call for Systemic and Empirical Approaches. Journal of National Law University Delhi. 2014;2(1):1-25. doi:10.1177/2277401720140101
- 1 Indian J. L. & Tech. 169 (2005) Intellectual Property and India's Development Policy
- 9 Socio-Legal Rev. 101 (2013) Recasting the LLM: Course Design and Pedagogy
2. The administrative responsibilities leaving little room to publish is also true. However, that holds for everyone, not only Sudhir. Most of the good faculty across various law universities in India are burdened with admin responsibilities above and beyond their job. If they are still expected to keep publishing and their ability as a teacher is to be determined by their publications only (usual practice in LI that I don't agree with), so should Sudhir. He has not been officially in charge of any institution before NLSIU.
3. Nobody is claiming he has not published a book. Although editing one isn't the same as writing one. Both the books mentioned are good ones.
4. The publications listed are student law journals. The first one isn't even a well established one yet. I am not claiming that they aren't good. But again, they are not SCOPUS indexed or anything. If a faulty metric is applied to all academics where their worth is to be determined by SCOPUS publications and international journals only, then the same would be applied to Sudhir too. Can't have it both ways.