LUCKNOW: The Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court has issued notice to National Law University (NLU), Jodhpur, on a petition of a class 12th student who pointed out several anomalies in the question paper of Common Law Admission test (CLAT) 2012 and demanded a re-exam.
Justice SS Chauhan, after hearing the petition, issued notice to NLU, Jodhpur, to explain its position. Looking at the urgency of the matter, he has fixed the next date of hearing on May 28. The CLAT result is also expected on May 28. Counsel for the petitioner was permitted by the court to send FAX message to the opposite party informing about the filing of the writ petition and also requesting for appointment of a lawyer to represent the opposite party in the court.
T anaya Thakur in her petition stated that NLU Jodhpur had stated that general knowledge section will only test students on their knowledge of current affairs, that is, matters featuring in the mainstream media between March 2011 and March 2012. Further, it has stated, the exam will test students only on legal aptitude and not any prior knowledge of law or legal concepts. And, if a legal term is used it will be explained in the question itself.
But, Tanya claimed in her petition, at least 22-25 questions in the general knowledge section were beyond the current affairs period. Similarly, there were many legal terms in legal aptitude section whuch were not defined. Since the institution violated its own guidelines and syllabus, Tanaya has prayed that CLAT 2012 should be scrapped and a fresh examination should be held.
The CLAT 2012 was held on May 13 at 46 centres in 20 cities across the country. Almost 26,000 undergraduate and 1,050 postgraduate students took CLAT for admission to bachelor and master courses in law at various National Law Schools. After examinations, many students claimed that more than 25 questions were out of syllabus. Even a protest page against CLAT 2012 came up on Facebook with over 2000 members demanding a re-exam. Some asked for grace marks like last year when 12 marks were awarded to every student because some questions were wrong. One of the student pointed out that some of the questions were similar to Semester one Exams of BA.LLB of Calcutta University.
T he organising committee of CLAT, however, had then denied all charges. Officials had said that the question paper was set by the experts and questions are from within the frame work.

source : times