Allahabad
CLAT (Common Law Admission Test) is the entrance test for getting admission in the five year integrated LLB course in a number of law colleges across the country. The minimum age limit for appearing in the entrance exam was till now 20 years. But in the judgement by the Allahabad High Court on February 26, now the upper age limit of 20 from this year itself has been removed.
There are 16 national law schools in which the students get admission through CLAT. The entrance exam for this year is on May 10, the last date for form submission being March 31.
This year Dr Ram Manohar Lohia National Law University, Lukhnow will be organising the CLAT.
Even though the Bar Council has withdrawn its notification that prescribed the upper age to be 20 years in the stream of Integrated Bachelor of Law Degree Programme on September 28, the vice chancellor of Ram Manohar Lohia National Law University had not considered this. With the Bar Council's withdrawal of the notification the University has no authority to fix the upper age as it is merely an examination conducting university.
Under no provision of law the university can fix an upper limit age. And In the advertisement for CLAT 2015 and also in the information brochure there was no authority of law and hence acting according to the counsel of the parties the court has declared the fixing of an upper age limit, void.
According to the directions of Justice Shashi Kant Gupta who granted a writ petition by Devasheesh Pathak and 20 others, RMLNLU will allow the people over the age of 20 to appear in CLAT for 2015 if the other eligibility conditions are fulfilled.
The fundamental rights of the constitution are violated if an age for admissions in the courses is fixed.
Similar petitions have been made earlier as well so that no upper age is fixed for admissions in other examinations like Chartered Accountant (CA), Company Secretary, MBA and B.Ed.