The Bar Council of India backs PIL in the Delhi HC advocating for the conduct of CLAT in regional languages

The Bar Council of India (BCI) has expressed its support for a public interest litigation (PIL) petition currently before the Delhi High Court. The PIL seeks to ensure that the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) is administered not only in English but also in Hindi and other regional languages.

In an affidavit presented to the High Court, the BCI conveyed that expanding the CLAT to languages beyond English would offer greater opportunities for individuals to partake in the exam and pursue a legal career. The Council stated, "The 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."

This response comes in connection to a plea submitted by Sudhanshu Pathak, a law student, who urged the High Court to conduct CLAT 2024 in Hindi and other regional languages. Pathak contended that the exclusive use of English for the exam unjustly disadvantages students who come from non-English medium educational backgrounds.

Pathak asserted in his plea, "CLAT discriminates against and fails to provide a level playing field to the students belonging to educational backgrounds rooted in regional languages. In a hyper-competitive paper, they are linguistically disempowered as they have to surpass the additional hurdle of learning and mastering a new language."

The Consortium of National Law Universities had previously opposed the plea by filing an affidavit. The Consortium argued that logistical challenges make it impractical to hold CLAT 2024 in regional languages. They further highlighted that the scale of CLAT differs from larger qualifying and entrance examinations like UPSC, IIT-JEE, and NEET, which are not administered in all the regional languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.

Author: Anushka Taraniya

News Writer, MIT ADT University