The Common Law Admission Test [CLAT], an annual national level entrance examination for admission into National Law Universities [NLUs] was held yesterday, across forty two cities. It is believed that around forty thousand students appeared for the Under Graduate level of this examination.
This year’s CLAT was conducted and managed by Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia National Law University, Lucknow [RMLNLU]. Through CLAT 2015, the examination marked its foray into the online medium, providing students an option to opt for an online, computer based exam instead of a physical, paper based exam.
However, this maiden attempt at an online edition of CLAT reportedly faced quite a few drawbacks and problems. According to Vidhigya, a division of the Indore based company – Schools of Skills, many students faced problems whilst attempting the online examination. It was reported that at one of the online centres, a ’404 Error’ was intermittently being displayed at the computer screens, which caused widespread panic and loss of focus amongst the students. In another case, one of the centres experienced server problems and all the students were made to re-enter their login details, which resulted in a loss of around 10 minutes of the total examination duration. In both these instances, the students were not compensated with extra time.
Apart from these technical ‘glitches’, the question paper too had a few errors which further confused the students. For example, in one of the questions on Logical Reasoning [Blood Relation], two of the options were repetitive. In yet another question, the word ‘health’ was incorrectly spelled as ‘wealth’. Students were also furious over some of the questions asked under Legal Reasoning, which were based on Case Laws and Legal Knowledge, instead of legal propositions and facts – as stated in the syllabus.
While some of the above mentioned incidents or errors may not have any or much impact on the performance or the result of the students, it still begs the question that why such a renowned and esteemed examination is not able to eliminate such errors and problems, despite having a distinguished and resourceful organising committee every year.
Troubled by this, Advocate Bahul Shastri, Legal Advisor to School of Skills, has written to Prof. [Dr.] Gurdip Singh, Convenor of the CLAT 2015 Core Committee, mentioning his disappointment over the recently conducted exam:
I believe that errors in the question paper and on the top of it the students not being made aware about such errors amounts to irresponsible conduct on the part of organizing university. The online mode of exam has further added to the grief. In CLAT Exam where every single mark matters, I believe such mishappenings are really detrimental to the interest of the students.
Mr. Shastri has so far not received any response either from Mr. Singh or any of the representatives of the Core Committee. The letter sent by Mr. Shastri can be viewed here.
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Please do comment below if you or someone you know also faced any problem or found any mistakes while attempting the exam.
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Prepared with inputs from the team at Vidhigya, School of Skills.