Common Law Admissions Test (CLAT) aspirant Nilav Bannerjee wrote to the Chief Justice of India (CJI) and President of India seeking intervention in this year’s hike in the cost of CLAT forms from Rs 3,000 to Rs 4,000, and in the doubling of national law universities’ provisional admission fee to Rs 1 lakh.

Bannerjee, in his letter, also raised the issue of lack of transparency in the exam’s conduct where answer keys have not been disclosed, for which a petition by a CLAT coaching centre was also admitted by the Rajasthan high court in February.

Bannerjee wrote about the CLAT, which is conducted by GNLU Gandhinagar this year:

“Last year, CLAT-13 was conducted by Hidayatullah National Law University, Raipur. As per the system of provisional admission, the students clearing CLAT would be required to deposit an amount of 50,000 INR to confirm (and secure) their seat in the NLU allotted to the particular student (the amount being later adjustable with the tuition fee of the NLU allotted to the student). However, this year, there has been an unforeseeable development. The organizers of this year’s CLAT (Gujarat National Law University, Gandhinagar) have raised the provisional admission fee from 50,000 INR to 1,00,000 INR. A candidate failing to deposit the same, his/her reasons notwithstanding, shall forfeit the right to his/her admission...

“An arbitrary fee policy by a Government recognized University is a body blow to the aspirations of students and parents across the nation… I sincerely urge you to intervene in this matter, so that CLAT doesn’t end up being an examination for only the privileged classes, who can bear to fund exorbitant form filling-up fee, arbitrary provisional admission fee and high tuition fee.”

Read the full letter: