Orissa High Court: A Division Bench of S. Panda and S. K. Panigrahi JJ., dismissed the petition and called upon the relevant legal stakeholders to ensure that a uniform and well-defined parameter is adopted so that the meritorious candidates do not suffer.
The facts of the case are such that the petitioner has challenged the inaction of opposite party 1 in not considering the application of the petitioner for admission into 5 years BBA LLB (Hons.) Course under NRIs (Non-Resident Indian Sponsored) category for the academic year commencing 2020.
Counsel for the petitioners submitted that when she applied for CLAT (Common Law Admission Test) examination and wanted to apply through NRI quota but selected GENERAL CATEGORY for the same, however, due to COVID outbreak she wasn’t able to modify the quota due to technical glitch on the last date i.e. 15-08-2020. It was further submitted that the petitioner’s name was not found in the merit list where the candidates with a lower rank than that of the petitioner were in the merit list as against NRI/NRIs category.
Counsel for the respondents submitted the petitioner herein has not applied under NRI/NRIs category for the CLAT 2020 Application in spite of several extensions granted to the students by the CLAT Consortium. It was further submitted that there is always the possibility of server down, internet glitch etc. and therefore, it has been advised by the CLAT conducting authority that candidates must apply well before the last date because there tends to be a heavy rush on the use of internet on the last date.
The Court observed that The Opposite Party 1 is bound by the CLAT Rules and Notification. If the petitioner fails to figure in the CLAT 2020 NRI/NRIs category, the Opposite Party 1 cannot change the category of the candidate. Since the petitioner has not applied under NRI/NRIs category in the CLAT 2020 Application, due to the said fact the OP 1 had to reject the candidate’s application.
Court held that changing the category, at this juncture when the admissions are over, would disturb the entire process and jeopardize the interest of so many students.
The Court before disposing off the petition relied on the judgment P. A. Inamdar v. State of Maharashtra, (2005) 6 SCC 537 and observed:
“NRIs category is an affront to the meritorious candidates who toiled day night to secure seats in NLUs through CLAT. The candidates belonging to the category of NRI/NRIs, who are very low ranked in the merit list often gets seat in the NLUs whereas the general candidates having secured better marks also lag behind the NRIS students and get disappointed. This is like the reservation for the elite class and this dubious category of quota is unconstitutional.”[Ishika Pattnaik v. National Law University of Odisha, 2020 SCC OnLine Ori 762, decided on 20-10-2020]
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