If Medical Or JEE Entrance Exam Can Be Held In Hindi, Why Not CLAT? Delhi High Court To Consortium Of NLUs

The Delhi High Court on Friday asked the Consortium of National Law Universities that if medical entrance exams and other competitive examinations like JEE can be held in Hindi, then why not Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) for admission to law schools, which is presently conducted only in English language.

A division bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad was hearing a public interest litigation to conduct 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.

Directing the Consortium of NLUs to file its response to the plea, the bench said:

“If the medical education can be taught in Hindi, if the entrance examination for MBBS can be held in Hindi, JEE can be held in Hindi….what is this you are talking about.”

The counsel appearing for the Consortium of NLUs submitted that the body was not taking the PIL as adversarial and that it was in agreement with the prayer that the exam should also be conducted in other languages.

The court was also apprised that a committee has also been constituted which would take a call on the aspect of conducting CLAT in other languages in its meeting fixed for today, May 20.

The counsel appearing for Bar Council of India also submitted that the All India Bar Examination conducted by the lawyers’ body is held in most of the regional languages.

As Senior Advocate Jayant Mehta appearing for the petitioner submitted that consortium’s reply to the plea at an early date is necessary otherwise the matter will become infructuous, the court ordered:

“The concern of senior advocate Jayant Mehta is a genuine concern and therefore, the respondent no. 1 (Consortium of NLUs) is granted four weeks time to file reply positively”.

The matter will now be heard on July 07.

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

The pleq 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