Legally
India: Hyderabad: Tuesday, 07 July 2015.
Common Law
Admission Test (CLAT) 2015 convenor RMLNLU Lucknow claimed secrecy for the
three CLAT memorandums of understanding (MoU) signed between national law
universities (NLU) since 2007.
The convenor
with a letter dated 1 July rejected a Right to Information (RTI) request dated
10 June 2015, which was filed by the Increasing Diversity by Increasing Access
(IDIA) scheme, asking for a copy each of the MoU signed between seven NLUs on
23 November 2007, and the MoUs signed between 14 NLUs in 2014 and on 10 May 2015.
The convenor,
via RMLNLU joint registrar Dr JD Ganwar, rejected the request stating that the
information was exempt from disclosure under “Section 8(e)” of the RTI Act
2005.
There is no
Section 8(e) under the Act, however Section 8, which lists the exemptions
permitted under the Act, provides in its clause (1)(e) that: “Notwithstanding
anything contained in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any
citizen information available to a person in his fiduciary relationship, unless
the competent authority is satisfied that the larger public interest warrants
the disclosure of such information.”
As reported
last month in Mint and Legally India, this year’s CLAT is likely to generate at
least Rs 16 crore, of which half would go to RMLNLU after deducting the
expenses of holding the CLAT.
In 2012
Nalsar Hyderabad had responded to an RTI filed by Legally India that under the
23 November 2007 MoU, India’s first seven NLUs had agreed to discontinue their
separate law entrance tests from the year 2008 onwards and admit students
through the CLAT, which was to be conducted by each of the seven signatories by
rotation each year.
RMLNLU
Lucknow, which was not in existence in 2007 and therefore not a signatory to
the 2007 MoU, could not have conducted CLAT under its terms. Since by 2014 each
of the seven signatories had convened CLAT once, a new MoU was entered into
between 14 NLUs to enable the newer NLUs to convene the CLAT, as reported by
Legally India in November 2014.
RMLNLU vice
chancellor Prof Gurdip Singh had told Legally India that the new MoU, among
other things, spelled out the terms under which a new law university could be
admitted to the CLAT.
Gangwar, who
in an interview with Legally India in June had claimed the convenor was
committed to transparency, was not reachable for comment by phone and messages
today.
The same RTI
was sent to NLSIU Bangalore and Nalsar Hyderabad; no response has yet been
received.