Supreme Court Dismisses Plea Seeking To Postpone CLAT 2021

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court refused to entertain a plea seeking to postpone the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) 2021 which is scheduled to be held on 23rd July.

The plea was filed by Advocate Kunal Chatterjee. Due to the COVID-19 situation and a possible third wave, he asked for directions to the Consortium for the postponement of the CLAT 2021 examination. The petitioner further submitted that the CLAT examination will be conducted in physical mode and will be for unvaccinated students as most of the candidates are below the age of 18.

A division bench of Justice Nageswara Rao and Justice Aniruddha Bose said, “the examination is scheduled to be held on July 23rd and we don't deem it proper to postpone the exam at this stage. However, we see force in the submission that all safety measures have to be strictly followed. Authorities should not insist on Students taking vaccination”. Thus, the bench directed that authorities should not make vaccination of students compulsory and all the safety measures should be strictly adhered to for the CLAT 2021 examination.

The petitioners urged for the postponement of the CLAT 2021 examination till the situation becomes normal or to formulate an alternate method for conducting the examination.

Nevertheless, the plea got dismissed mentioning that it can put an adverse effect on the students who are to appear for the examination at this time.