The University of Delhi (DU) is now able to admit students to its newly launched five-year integrated legal programmes based on CLAT 2023 scores rather than CUET results thanks to the Delhi High Court’s temporary decision. The students are uncertain about the long-term admissions procedure because the decision is provisional and only applies to the current academic session. In order to admit the students based on their CLAT scores, DU had received approval from both its Academic Council (AC) and Executive Council (EC).
Based on a petition Prince Singh, a DU student, submitted against the DU judgment, a division bench made up of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Sanjeev Narula put the case up for hearing. The five-year legal programme, according to the UGC, the court that the five-year law course is a professional degree programme that may require different criteria for admission to students indicating that CUET marks can be set aside in some cases.
Speaking to Education Times, Megh Raj, member of AC, teaching in Law Faculty of DU, says, “When the matter pertaining to whether admission to Law courses should be given on the basis of CLAT or CUET scores was pending in the court, UGC came up with an affidavit which said that considering CUET scores was not mandatory for the central universities. Affidavit further stated that universities may just concentrate on the students’ performance on the entrance exam appropriate to their chosen stream when deciding who gets admitted to which professional programmes. So, after reviewing the UGC affidavit, the Delhi High Court rendered its decision.
A small number of students might be impacted because a sizable portion took the CUET but did not take the CLAT. Additionally, the CUET is offered in a number of Indian languages, and the application fee is affordable. Contrarily, the CLAT application fee is Rs 5,000, which is fairly expensive, and the exam is only offered in English, which makes the admissions process challenging for many students. Admission to integrated law studies at several other central universities, including BHU, is based on CUET results. Additionally, DU students are allowed to complete their answer sheets in Hindi, according to Raj.
In addition, “CLAT is only suited for catering to the demands of National Law Universities. CUET score can be considered for admitting students to Law courses that are offered in the central universities. Even after releasing three cut-offs for the Law programme, seats are still vacant in DU. Hence, admitting students only on the basis of CLAT score will make it difficult to fill the vacant seats during this academic session,” informs Raj.
BJ Rao, vice-chancellor, the University of Hyderabad, says, “The Delhi HC’s decision is progressive in nature as CLAT is more geared towards adequately testing the students who are inclined towards Law in actual sense. The CUET entrance exam has a generic orientation and might not adequately test the aptitude of students that is required for Law courses. This is quite evident from the fact that there exist specialized entrance exams like JEE and NEET for the Engineering and Medical streams respectively.”
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