IN THE HONBLE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI [CIVIL APPELATE JURISDICTION] CM No.

of 2012 IN LPA 458/2012 in WRIT PETITION [C] NO. 3208 OF 2012

IN THE MATTER OF: Shubham Sinha VS The Union of India and Ors AND IN THE MATTER OF: Raghul Sudheesh Associate Editor, Bar and Bench # 92/3, Marthahalli, Outer Ring Road, Next to Home Town, Bengaluru-37 .Respondents Appellant

. ..Intervening Petitioner

INTERVENTION APPLICATION ORDER I RULE X OF CPC READ WITH UNDER SETION 151 OF CIVIL PROCEEDURE CODE 1908.

TO THE HONBLE CHIEF JUSTICE OF DELHI HIGH COURT AND HIS COMPANION JUSTICS OF THE HONBLE THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI, AT NEW DELHI. The humble petition of the Intervener/ Applicant above named Intervention Petition seeking a permanent CLAT governing Body

1. The Intervener/applicant is a legal journalist working with a legal news website Bar & Bench based out of Bangalore as Associate Editor. Bar & Bench is acomprehensive news and analysis portal for Indian legal professionals which provides the latest in news,information, interviews and columns. The applicant is a law graduate and an alumnus of National University of Advanced Legal Studies (NUALS), Cochin. The applicant is involved much in the field of legal journalism and has interviewed many legal personalities including Supreme Court Judges. The applicant is covering CLAT 2011 and CLAT 2012 extensively for Bar & Bench. The applicant files the intervention petition with bona fide interest in the larger interest of the student community.

2. The applicant applauds the introduction of CLAT as the common entrance exam of all the NLUs in the country as a result of a public interest litigation WP (C) No. 68/2006 Varun Bhagat v. Union of India & Others filed before the Supreme Court. Since its introduction CLAT has been an important instrument to enhance the scope and popularity of law as a career option. However, with successive editions of CLAT conducted by various NLUs, certain grave irregularities have been constantly surfacing, thereby jeopardizing the future of the applicants as well as the potential prospects of legal education. 3. The petitioner would like to draw the courts attention towards the basic system that governs the functioning of CLAT. The exam is conducted by the constituting NLUs on a rotation basis. Thegoverning body in this regard is called the CLAT committee, the

constitution of which changes every year with the change in the NLU responsible for conducting the exam. While this system has been responsible for bringing many new insights into the admission process, this has not really been helpful in maintaining a consistent standard regarding the pattern and procedures concerning the entrance exam and the admission process that follows.Due to lack of any set basic guidelines which are not prone to alterations by the successive CLAT committees, every year the applicants and their parents are faced with a new admission procedure to deal with. Here the lack of effective communication among the various organising universities is also to share the blame. No deliberation as to the response received by the existing procedure, the identification of the positive or negative aspects etc. is done. The modifications so carried out by the successive CLAT committees do not reflect any lessons learnt from previous errors. Similarly, many renovations that are introduced by a CLAT committee fail to make to the admission process regardless of the positive response they generated among the students.

A few such instances were seen in the CLAT 2012 this year. Firstly, the system of generation of a centralized allotment list for the LLM admission process was not followed this time. The CLAT website instructed the students to apply individually to the

University of their Choice with their CLAT score. The centralized allotment lists formed one of the basic objectives that CLAT, as a common entrance test sought to achieve. Doing away with this

system, given its efficiency and significance, and reverting back to the hassle of individual applications to the Universities was a step unwarranted for. On a similar note stands the system of buffer seats which was introduced in the last edition of CLAT in 2011. Many times, a few students, even after being through the entire admission process, leave for other colleges, stream etc. Buffer Seats were created to avoid the wastage of approximately 2-5% seats which go waste in such cases. To counter the wastage of seats due to this, approximately 5% seats were increased. All the NLUs agreed that even if the extra students due to the increase decide to stay, they will carry them forward. This idea received a great response last year. However, notwithstanding any such factors, this system was done away with in the current edition of CLAT. No explanations were offered in this regard by the CLAT committee. 4. Essential elements like the syllabus, the admission criteria and the counselling procedure undergo rigorous modifications. Such inconsistencies in the modus operandi of CLAT leave any prior advice/directions by seniors, mentors and others concerned of no accord. Eventually the student finds himself perplexed about how to go about the prescribed procedures.

In addition, the frequent changes made to the procedures each year are also not communicated well to the students sometimes. Whenever any new modification to the system is done, a transparent communication of the change to the other end is not

made. Often such changes are not accompanied by any guidelines to help the students to tackle the said changes. This further accumulates the confusions for the students.

Besides these, several other irregularities have also been cropping up with every passing year of CLAT. Instances of irregularities regarding the question paper leak, inconsistency of the question papers with the prescribed syllabus and the like have been surfacing every year. During the second edition of CLAT in 2009, the question paperwas reported as leaked a few days before the day of the examination. With only few days at hand, major compromises were made regarding the quality of the newly set paper. It was found that the questions that finally appeared in the examination were heavily borrowed from two of the popular CLAT preparation guides. In the same edition, during the counselling and admission process, a system of vacant seats was introduced, according to which, the vacant seats available in the NLUs after the three successive allotment lists had been issued were to be filled through individual applications to the respective NLUs. However, the disturbing point in this procedure was

that the students who were already enlisted in the previous allotment lists were barred to apply under these vacant seats. As such, a student who did not feature in the allotment lists got an unfair chance to secure admission in a higher ranked NLU, while a student who had been allotted a lower ranked NLU was denied a possible up gradation.

Further, in the fourth edition of CLAT in 2011, the question paper had many of the answers underlined. In addition, when the rank lists were issued, the ties between the students were not considered. This led to a lot of confusion as a student initially happy with his rank of say 90 was gravely disappointed upon learning that it is not a great All India Rank. This was a source of great mental trauma and hardship for the students. In the fifth and latest addition of CLAT, the syllabus guidelines issued on the CLAT website were grossly disregarded. A large number of questions were based on legal principles and static GK, both of which were expressly held as not being in the syllabus in the guidelines. The allotment lists that came up after that were also arbitrary, as the factors like rank secured by a student and his preference for a particular college were not conformed to. Subsequently, to make amends, the list was removed from the website and a new list was put up, without any notification made in this regard.

All these irregularities in the admission process have been instrumental in the formation of adverse notions about the efficiency of CLAT among the masses. Amongst increasing efforts to enhance the scope of legal education and make it a diverse

phenomenon, such side effects are really unwarranted.

5. The petitioner would also like to point out that the structure of the examination which does not seem to effectively gauge then students aptitude for legal studies. Rather than forming the examination in a format that tests the analytical and logical application skills of the candidate, many times the focus is on the prior knowledge of law. Such a format enhances the need for prior coaching before the examination. As such the interest of the children from a rural background who already suffer a backlog regarding the lingual skills of the other well off urban students, and cannot afford the coaching expenses. Even when the syllabus guidelines reflected such concerns and expressly stated that static GK and law based questions would not form a part of the question paper, the actual question paper showed gross disregard of these guidelines, thus creating further confusions for the applicant students.

This is not only a source of trouble for the applicants, but also is a major setback to the diversity initiatives like the IDIA(Increasing Diversity by Increasing Access) program that has been striving to secure representation for the socially and economically backward

children in law schools under the guidance of Prof. Shamnad Basheer, Ministry of HRD chair professor, NUJS. As such, the structure of the paper should be determined with expert deliberations about what the examination seeks to gauge and what should be the most effective way to determine it. Such criteria should be strictly followed while setting the paper and should be reflected in the questions so asked. However, as was from the CLAT 2012 paper, no such steps were taken while conducting the said examination and the brunt of this ignorance was bore by the students.

6. Another problem that the petitioner would like to drive courts attention to is that of counselling. The general procedure of counselling that is employed under CLAT includes the preferences for colleges that the students are required to fill. On the basis of these preferences as well as the merit attained by the candidate, the allotment list is issued. There are three rounds of upgradation after that, to fill up seats which are left by the students for other colleges or any other reason. Then finally after the fourth allotment list, the counselling process generally concludes.

7. The problems that arise with this process are many. Firstly, the students

are

expected to fill up their preferences before the examination and results. There is a high probability of the students filling of these choices haphazardly due to lack of awareness about the rankings of the various NLUs. Some of the students are not even aware of

how the system works and how the preference should be filled. Most of the students fill up the preferences in the same order as they are listed in the CLAT Brochure which

indicates seniority of the NLUs and not their

rankings. Also, as a result of constant

three fold up gradation that subsequently happens, the students are forced to travel from one university to another till their allotment is finalised after the fourth list. This gives rise to an unnecessary hassle. A system of online centralised counselling could be an answer to these problems. This will not only fix the problem of uninformed choices being made by the students by calling for their preferences after the results have been declared, but also tackle the menace of travelling from one law school to another as a result of CLAT 2011; however, it was limited to that edition of the CLAT and despite a good response, was not followed in the successive edition in 2012, reverting back to the preference cum merit system. upgradation. Similar procedure was introduced in the

8. As such the petitioner would pray the court for directing the formation of a permanent CLAT body, keeping into consideration the issues that have been so raised before it, so as to cater to the interests of the students and the sphere of legal education as a whole.

9. The petitioner would like to suggest a model CLAT Committee which can be efficiently used as an instrument to tackle the issues raised above. The permanent committee for CLAT may comprise of eminent legal personalities independent of any association with the administration of the participating law schools. The committee

may be categorized into four inter-functional wings. The first wing may consist of academicians responsible for determining the basic elements that the examination seeks to gauge. It may also be responsible for setting up the syllabus and the criteria for admission in lines with the above determination. In furtherance of the interests of the students, free basic study material may be issued by this wing. Also, within a reasonable period of time, sample papers may be issued to the students to clarify any doubts regarding the format of the paper. The wing should take into consideration the diversity of students appearing for the exam and accordingly structure the format so as to curb the need of prior coaching for the exam. This may be in the interests of the rural and poor students. The second wing may deal with issues concerning the assimilation of information. For this purpose the effective use of the CLAT website can be an asset. Enquires relating to any aspect of the examination can be answered by this wing, using the website as a forum for the same. A hotline system should also form a part of this wing to help the students lacking internet access. The information that this wing may provide can consist of ranking of the universities, tie breaking criteria and essential guidelines regarding the counselling procedure. In addition, issues like the publicity of the examination,

enhancement of the availability of the application form by increasing the centres for the same, etc. can also be handled by this wing. The third wing may be the diversity wing. It may deal with increasing the diversity in the population of law schools. Sensitization programs can be run by this wing in consonance with the already running movements in this regard. A part of the funds of the CLAT committee can be allocated to this wing for

arrangements of scholarships in order to effectuate the aforementioned objectives. The last wing may deal with the process of declaration of results and counselling. The proper declaration of results after the tie breaking procedure and allocation of a unique master rank to each applicant should be managed by this wing. The counselling procedure should be made of a centralised nature. That may be done by introducing online counselling system with adequate technical assistance.

10. Alternatively, a statutory body may be constituted by the court as the CLAT governing body, keeping into the consideration the concerns which require its attention.

Grounds 1. Functioning of the CLAT committee regarding the admission process to NLUs have been showing grave inconsistencies in the past. This has been a source of mental trauma and hardship for the students. 2. There is a lack of fixed structure regarding the admission procedures under the CLAT. There have been frequent instances showing lack of communication and transparency between the CLAT committee and the students.

3. The arbitrariness resulting from these irregularities may be instrumental towards developing a deteriorating trend with respect to CLAT and legal education on the whole.Therefore it is submitted that it would be beneficial to the student community, if a permanent CLAT governing body is set up, so as to address the issues raised above. Prayer The Petitioner humbly requests the court to: Therefore it is prayed that this intervention application may be allowed and the intervening applicant may be allowed to submit his views before this Honble Court, in the interest of justice. Intervener Applicant P. GEORGE GIRI Advocate for intervener applicant

IN THE HONBLE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI [CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION] CM . No. of 2012 in

LPA 458/2012 in WRIT PETITION [C] NO.3208 OF 2012

IN THE MATTER OF: Shubham Sinha VS The Union of India and Ors AND IN THE MATTER OF: .Respondents Appellant

Raghul Sudheesh Associate Editor, Bar and Bench # 92/3, Marthahalli, Outer Ring Road, Next to Home Town, Bengaluru-37 Intervening Application PAPER BOOK ..Intervening Applicant

P.GEORGE GIRI, Advocate for intervener

IN THE HONBLE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI [CIVIL APPELATE JURISDICTION] CM . No. of 2012 in

LPA 458/2012 in WRIT PETITION [C] NO.3208 OF 2012 IN THE MATTER OF: Shubham Sinha VS The Union of India and Ors AND IN THE MATTER OF: .Respondents Appellant

Raghul Sudheesh Associate Editor, Bar and Bench # 92/3, Marthahalli, Outer Ring Road, Next to Home Town, Bengaluru-37 AFFIDAVIT I, Raghul Sudheesh, residing at No. 92/3, Marthahalli, Outer Ring Road, Next to Home Town, Bengaluru- 560037, presently at New Delhi, solemnly affirm and declare as follows: 1. That I am the deponent herein and the intervening applicant in theabove case and as such I am well aware of the facts and circumstances of the case. ..Intervening Applicant

2. That I have read over the above said intervening application page No. to and I have understood the contents therein which are true to the best of my knowledge and has been drafted on my instructions. Deponent Verification: I, Raghul Sudheesh, legal journalist and Associate Editor of Bar and Bench, verify that the contents of this application is true and correct to my knowledge and belief. Solemnly affirmed and signed on this 18th day

of July, 2012 at New Delhi. Deponent

IN THE HONBLE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI [CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION] CM . No. of 2012 in

LPA 458/2012 in WRIT PETITION [C] NO. 3208 OF 2012

IN THE MATTER OF: Shubham Sinha VS The Union of India and Ors AND IN THE MATTER OF: Raghul Sudheesh ..Intervening Applicant .Respondents Appellant

INDEX S.N. 1. 2 3 4 5 6 DESCRIPTION NOTICE OF MOTION URGENT APPLICATION MEMO OF PARTIES INTERVENTION APPLICATION AFFIDAVIT IN SUPPORT VAKALATNAMA RS.3/RS. 3/RS. 3/COURT FEES PAGE NO A-A1 A2 A3-B 1-12 13-14 15

IN THE HONBLE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI [CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION] CM No. of 2012 in

LPA 458/2012 in WRIT PETITION [C] NO. 3208 OF 2012 IN THE MATTER OF: Shubham Sinha Appellant

VS The Union of India and Ors AND IN THE MATTER OF: Raghul Sudheesh MEMO OF PARTIES 1. Shubham Sinha S/o Shri Prabhat Kumar Sinha Block No.252, Flat No. 6B, Railway Officers Enclave, P.K. Road, New Delhi 110001 Appellant VERSUS 1. Union of India, Ministry of Human Resource Development Through its Secretary 4th Floor, A-Wing, Shastri Bhawan New Delhi 110 001. Respondent No. 1 ..Intervening Applicant .Respondents

2. The Bar Council of India Through its Chairman 21, Rouse Avenue InstitutionalArea,

Near Bal Bhawan, New Delhi 110 002 3. The Convenor, Common Law Admission Test, 2012 National Law University, NH-65, Nagaur Road, Mandore, Jodhpur 342304 (Rajasthan) 4. The Registrar, National Law University, NH-65, Nagaur Road, Mandore, Jodhpur 343304 (Rajasthan) Respondent No. 4 Respondent No. 3 Respondent No. 2

Intervening Applicant: Raghul Sudheesh Associate Editor, Bar and Bench # 92/3, Marthahalli, Outer Ring Road, Next to Home Town, Bengaluru- 560037. ..Intervening Applicant