BCI Supports Plea to Conduct CLAT in Languages Other than English in HC, Check Details Here

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The Bar Council of India has suggested the Delhi High Court to conduct the Common Law Admission Test(CLAT) exam in different languages other than English on a petition by a law student Sudhanshu Pathak, a student of Delhi University. Read Details!

BCI Supports Plea to Conduct CLAT in Languages Other than English

New Delhi: The Bar Council of India (BCI) has suggested the Delhi High Court to conduct the CLAT examination in languages other than English that would give opportunities to citizens with different mother tongues to appear in the exam and pursue law as a career. The apex bar body stated the same in an affidavit filed in response to a PIL seeking conducting CLAT 2024 not only in English but also in regional languages.

The BCI said it in support of the issue raised by petitioner Sudhanshu Pathak, a law student of the Delhi University. The Common Law Admission Test (CLAT), which is organised by the Consortium of National Law Universities, is conducted in English every year and CLAT-2024 is scheduled to be conducted in December 2023.

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The petitioner, in his PIL, has stated that the conduct of CLAT (UG) examination in English language "discriminates" and fails to provide a "level playing field" to students whose educational backgrounds are rooted in regional languages. The BCI in its affidavit said that, "Bar Council of India supports the issue raised by the petitioner for conducting the CLAT examination in languages other than English as the same will give opportunities to more citizens of the country to appear in the exam and pursue law as a career."

The BCI further said that according to the Legal Education Rules, English has to be the medium of instruction in both the integrated 5-year and 3-year law courses, but it is upto the various law institution to allow instruction in any language other than English. To this, he added that, If the medium of instruction of legal education is other than English, students have to take English as a compulsory paper.

The BCI clarified that the All India Bar Examination is held in 23 languages, including English, Hindi and other regional languages. The Consortium of National Law Universities earlier told the high court that conduct of the upcoming CLAT2024 is at an advanced stage and any judicial order directing the introduction of new language options this year without any negotiations and studies, would result in serious administrative and operational issues breakdown. The consortium further stated that it has formed an expert committee of Vice Chancellors consisting of 5 members to study the issues pertaining to addition of new language in the language option.

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