The Supreme Court on Monday cancelled Bengaluru-based National Law School of India University’s notification for a separate entrance exam for admission to its five-year integrated BA-LLB (Honours) programme, Live Law reported. The National Law Aptitude Test took place on September 12.

The court said that admissions to all the 22 National Law Universities will take place through the Common Law Admission Test, which is scheduled to be held on September 28. It added that the exam must take place with all coronavirus safety protocols in place. The court also suggested that all National Law Universities start their academic session by mid-October.

The order was passed by a bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan, on a petition filed by the institute’s former Vice Chancellor Professor R Venkata Rao and the father of a law aspirant. The petitioners challenged the National Law School of India University’s decision to conduct a separate exam while continuing as a member of the consortium of National Law Universities. They had also argued that a separate exam would pressurise the students, who had been expecting that preparing for the Common Law Admission Test would suffice.

“The sudden and capricious decision of the NLSIU has not only thrown the aspirants of CLAT 2020 into frenzy and in a state of fear and confusion, it has also severely jeopardized the position of the university in the consortium,” the petitioners had said, according to PTI. “Due to the whimsical conduct of the University, the children are put to extreme pressure and mental stress.”

On September 11, the top court had allowed the institute to conduct the exam the next day but stopped it from publishing the results or making admissions based on it.

Several students who took the test on September 12 in online mode complained of technical glitches. The university held a re-test on September 14, but then complaints emerged about the question paper being leaked.

The university had defended its decision to hold the exam, saying that it was “uniquely disadvantaged” due to the repeated postponement of the Common Law Admission Test and a trimester system, which was different from other universities. The university had argued that it would face a “zero year” if admissions did not take place in September.