The Karnataka High Court on Tuesday set aside the National Law School of India (Amendment) Act, 2020, that provides reservation of 25% of the total seats in the National Law School of India University (NLSIU) for the students of Karnataka.
The Court said that the amendment was contrary to the object of the original Act, which had made NLSIU an autonomous institution without leaving any scope for the State to interfere in administration or academic matters.
A Division Bench comprising Justice B.V. Nagarathna and Justice Ravi V. Hosmani passed the interim order on the petitions filed by Master Balachandar Krishnan, an aspirant to a seat in the NLSIU through the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT), the Bar Council of India and others. The petitioners had questioned the constitutional validity of the new Act.
The NLSI (Amendment) Act, 2020 states that 25% of the total seats in the NLSIU will be reserved horizontally for students who have studied in any one of the recognised institutions in Karantaka for a period not less than 10 years preceding the qualifying exam.
The Court had on September 8 stayed the implementation of the Act when the NLSIU decided to conduct its own admission test, National Law Aptitude Test (NLAT), after coming out from the consortium of National Law Universities across India, which conducts CLAT. The NLAT, conducted on September 12, was set aside by the Supreme Court while directing the NLSIU to admit students based on CLAT, which was held on September 28 across the country.m
