Uday Umesh Lalit, J. - (1.) These petitions highlight improper conduct of Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) 2018 by Respondent Nos.2 and 3, which is a single window online entrance test for admission to 19 prestigious National Law Universities in the country. The petitioners had appeared for said CLAT and had faced various difficulties, which according to them, were occasioned as a result of mismanagement by respondent Nos.2 and 3. Some of the difficulties that were experienced by the petitioners and other candidates were: A. Questions of the examination did not appear on the screen at the start, and were intermittently disappearing and re-appearing. B. The options to move to the next question, etc. stopped working intermittently. C. Blank screens or frozen screens and software crashes. D. Invigilators were incompetent and unhelpful in being unable to help resolve glitches and in terms of their rudeness, when apprised of the existence of glitches. E. Computers were dysfunctional and rebooting them did not help. Resultantly, the effective time available to the candidates was far lesser than the allotted time, which in turn caused great prejudice to the candidates.
(2.) In addition to the petitions filed in this Court, some candidates also approached various High Courts, where the petitions are still pending. By order dated 24.05.2018 this Court had said, "as the entire issue in reference to CLAT Examination - 2018 is the subject matter in the present proceedings, it is appropriate that no High Court shall proceed with the hearing of pending proceedings on the subject matter till further orders."
(3.) On 25.05.2018 following order was passed by this Court: "In deference to the observations made by the Court during the course of hearing yesterday, Respondent Nos.2 and 3 have graciously agreed to constitute a Grievance Redressal Committee consisting of a retired Judge of the Kerala High Court, Mr. Justice M.R. Hariharan Nair, Dr. Santhosh Kumar G., Professor and Head, Department of Computer Science, Cochin University of Science and Technology. The Committee will be chaired by Mr. Justice M. R. Hariharan Nair who will examine every singular representation/complaint received online till now and any further representation/complaint received till 7.00 p.m. of Sunday, 27thMay, 2018 and after due analysis, appropriate decision on case to case basis will be taken by the Committee. In the first phase, the representations/complaints already received and of all the writ petitioners before this Court as well as different High Courts may be scrutinized and appropriate report/ recommendation/ decision thereon be recorded by the appropriate authority before 29th May, 2018 to be produced before the Court on 30th May, 2018. In the second phase, new/fresh representation/complaints received online upto 7.00 p.m. of Sunday, 27th May, 2018 be taken up for consideration and, if possible, the scrutiny thereof be completed on the same lines as indicated above up to 29th May, 2018 and status report in that behalf be filed before the Court on 30th May, 2018. Learned counsel for Respondent Nos.2 and 3 submits that as soon as fresh/new representations/complaints are received online, attempt will be made to acknowledge the same contemporaneously as far as possible. We appreciate the fair stand taken by learned counsel for Respondent Nos.2 and 3 to offer dispensation of this nature within such a short time. Learned counsel for Respondent Nos.2 and 3 submit that a dedicated email account will be created for this purpose of which publicity will be given on the official website of CLAT and will be notified on the official website very shortly within two hours from now. We make it clear that this order will also enure to the benefit of the writ petitioners who have filed writ petition in different High Courts. Interim stay regarding proceedings pending before different High Courts will continue to operate till the next date of hearing. List the matters on 30th May, 2018.";