Delhi High Court Issues Notice On PIL To Conduct CLAT-UG 2024 In English And Regional Languages

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday issued notice on a public interest litigation to conduct Common Law Admission Test (CLAT UG) 2024 not only in English but also in other regional languages as mentioned in the eighth schedule of the Constitution of India.

The exam is scheduled to be held in December this year.

A division bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad sought response of the Consortium of National Law Universities and others within four weeks’ and listed the matter for hearing on May 19.

The petition has been moved by Sudhanshu Pathak who is a law student of Delhi University. He was represented by Senior Advocate Jayant Mehta along with Advocates Akash Vajpai and Sakshi Raghav.

The petition states that the CLAT examination fails to provide a “level playing field” to the students whose educational backgrounds are rooted in regional languages.

“In a hyper-competitive paper, they are linguistically disempowered as they have to surpass the additional hurdle of learning and mastering a new language. Naturally, aspirants belonging to English-medium schools have an advantage over their peers belonging to schools operating in Hindi or other vernacular languages,” the plea states.

It has been submitted that the practice of taking CLAT (UG) examination only in English language has an element of arbitrariness and discrimination and is violative of Articles 14 and 29(2) of Constitution of India.

The petitioner also places reliance on a recent survey conducted by IDIA Trust indicating that over 95% of the surveyed students came from schools where the medium of instruction was English, both at the secondary and higher secondary level.

“This figure has been more or less consistent with the results of the 2013-14 survey wherein 96.77% of the surveyed students came from English medium backgrounds, indicating that proficiency in the English language continues to be a major factor for gaining admission to a top NLU in the country,” the plea states.

It has also been submitted that the new Education Policy of 2020 and Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 require mother tongue to be the medium of instruction in schools and higher education institutions.

“….it is unfortunate that English as an only medium of CLAT-(UG) is depriving a huge portion of the students of opting for the law ( 5 years LLB) as a course of study, who have studied in their regional or native languages,” the plea adds.

Title: SUDHANSHU PATHAK v. CONSORTIUM OF NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITIES THROUGH SECRETARY & ORS